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which he and his family have resided for many years. More- -over in the property known as "La Hacienda" he can acquire a house and land eminently adapted for his purposes if he desires a more pretentious residence.
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5.
In these circumstances I ask your authori-!
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-ty (a) to continue negotiations which Sir Robert Ho Tung up to a limit of 8165,000 plus valuers' fees and legal ex- -penses I hope to get the property for less and (b) to include in the bargain, if necessary, the Fire Brigade Station in Queen's Road which is valued by the Public Works
Department at 886,000. Arrangements could be made with Sir Robert Ho Tung under which he would not be given possession till the Government had moved the Fire Brigade Station to
the site of the old Harbour Office. This change will soon be
forced on the Government owing to the lack of accommodation
in the present Fire Brigade Station.
6.
In paragraph 3 of your Confidential Des-
-patch of the 7th. May, 1917, you raise the question of the
possibility of using the opportunity of the building of Government quarters for the purposes of developing the llew Territories. The project is, in my opinion, quite impractic- -able. Although the railway has been open for some years, the prevalence of malaria, the heat, and the general disadvantager
of life in the New Territories, lack of school, church, shops,
electric light and so on, are such that Europeans have show
no inclination to reside there, and the very small European
community at Taipo has not increased in numbers for a long
time past. Development will no doubt some day come; but it
would not be fair to the Civil Servant to make him the corpus
vile for experiment.
7.
I have referred at length, in my bonfident
-ial Despatch of the 5th. September, 1917, to the reasons why
the Peak is especially suitable for European residence. Asiatics have expropriated practically the whole of the
residential
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