CO129-328 - Governor Nathan - 1905 [1-6] — Page 497

.....

;

489

complicated. There the disproportion between the areas

mentioned in the Deeds and those over which the Taxlords

claimed rent was considerable, the smaller amount in the

Deed having been no doubt entered in order to deprive the

Chinese Government of taxes legally due to it. It did not,

however, appear to me that this Government was in any way

morally bound to compensate for loss of advantage derived

from that fraud.

5.

In cases of the third class where

the Taxlords' interests were not originally derived from

rights over land compensation was unnecessary, the services

for which they received payments having ceased. But in

many cases of this class that came from the Eastern portion

of the New Territories on the mainland the payments to

Taxlords were no doubt originally derived from some such

rights though the deeds connecting the payments with lands

had been lost. I decided that the best way to deal with

such cases in accordance with the principle followed in

cases of the 2nd. class was to grant to the Taxlords Crown

Leases of unoccupied lands of which the areas would bear

to the average of the areas mentioned in the Chinese Title

Deeds of the District the same proportion as the annual

receipts of the Taxlords had borne to the average of the

annual