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of money whatsoever in addition to the rent. Anyone who does so is liable to a fine of $1,000.
Clause 17 provides that any rent not payable under the Ordinance which has been paid by mistake can be recovered from the landlord and stopped out of the next rent payable.
I beg, Sir, to move the second reading. THE COLONIAL SECRETARY seconded.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL formally moved, and the COLONIAL SECRETARY seconded, that certain interested persons who desired to be heard by Counsel should be so heard.
The motion was agreed to.
The
possible into the market and buy private land in preference to Government land. They will rather pay more and be sure they get the land they ask for than take months and months of trouble, resulting in the land being purchased by someone else. This is one of the causes, and per- haps the main cause, of the situation which has brought this Bill about. second cause is the fact that the military authorities own large sections of land in the centre of the town which they do not require and which they do not put to use. That has caused a congestion which is inevitable and led to the law of supply and demand of private property soaring to great heights. And the third and more temporary cause is the general trade slump which started about a year ago. After the war there was a trade boom and money was locked up in trade, but the trade slump has caused money which would otherwise be invested in commercial enterprises being devoted to the purchase of shares, or the acquisition of landed property, with the result that both shares and land in this Colony have recently boomed. The money was legi- timately invested and invested on the faith that the investors would get an adequate return for the money invested. Properties have changed hands in the last few months, not only on the basis of the rents then paid but on the basis of the return the landlord expected to get for his money, the law allowing him to
Bill such as this, which destroys the sanctity of contract, and which is re- trospective, will destroy that very con- fidence on which all trade and all invest- ment is based. So far from leading to further building it will make further building in this Colony almost impos- sible, for once the Government sanctions the principle of retrospective legislation there is no limit to the amount of retros- pertive legislation which may be subse- quently introduced, and
one will
MR. C. G. ALABASTER said-May it please your Excellency and members of the Council, I am instructed by 31 pro- prietors of domestic tenements in Hong- kong, who represent between them many millions of dollars of invested money, to present their petition, copies of which are, I think, in the hands of all the mem- bers of this honourable council, and to represent their views on this matter. I do so at the risk of being described, as 1 have already been described in a peti- tion in anticipation, as a "counsellor of evil"; for it is a principle of that British justice, which is represented by the law and is to be found in those in- stitutions, such as this, where the law is made, that all sides are entitled to a hear-increase his rents, and that is why a ing and all sides are entitled to be re- presented by spokesmen. Now this Bill is opposed by those I re- present, and many more who have not had time to prepare or sign petitions, because it is a bad Bill. It is a Bill which a confessed in the memorandum of Objects and Reasons, was prepared in a hurry, which does not carry out the suggestions on which the Committee appointed was instructed to act, and which attempts to meet a situation which is not a sudden emergency but which is the result of a number of contributing causes which have operated during the last 10 or 15 years and which this Bill does nothing to remove-in fact which this Bill does much
accentuate.
to
The chief of these causes has been the policy of the Land Sales Department of this Colony. The harassing restrictions which are placed in the way of every applicant for land, in whatever part of the Colony he may be, has forced people who are desirous to build to go as far as
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know what return he may get upon his money. Clause 3 of the Bill states that "notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary, whether made before or after the commencement of this Ordinance, and whether oral or in writing, no rent shall be recoverable" except the standard rent and that rent was fixed as the rent of last December. One of the results of this will be that persons who have, with the assistance of the w, evicted the tenants of last year by offering to pay a higher rent to take their place will now
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as to
be protected and permitted to pay only 3.-That your petitioners view with the rent that was paid by the people that alarm the principle of the whole Bill they themselves dispossessed. I think the as unduly interfering with the law of greatest possible objection to this Bill is supply and demand and as tending to the clause which fixes the 31st December prevent the free development of the last year as the date at which the stand- Colony. That notwithstanding the ex- ard rent should be fixed.
If it is neces-ceptions contained in the Bill sary to fix a standard rent surely the newly erected property your petitioners rent of the 30th June would be a better do not believe this will lead to the one, for at that date it was known that erection of any considerable number of the Government contemplated such a Bill domestic tenements seeing that there is and subsequent purchases of property, if any, have been made on that understand- ing. With your Excellency's permission I will read the petition and make comments ∙as I go.
TO HIS EXCELLENCY SIR REGINALD EDWARD
STUBBS, K.C.M.G., Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Colony of Hongkong and its Depen- dencies and Vice-Admiral of the same and to the Several Honourable Mem- bera of the Legislative Council of Hongkong,
The Humble Petition of Li Wai Po, Chung Ting Chiu, Wong Sing Fai, Tang Hung, Tsui Kin Kwok, Tung Wai, Leung Hing Ip, Chiu Wai, Leung Wai Nam, Leung Shiu Kap, Fung Im, Chin Wong Shi, Sz To Shun Cho, Cheng Yuen, Leung Ying Chi, Pan Cheong Lam, Chan Hoi Lam, Ho Cheuk Ting, Leung Sai Chun, Yu Wai, Chan Wing Sing, Yuen Sam, Lau Kut Choi, Luk Choi Ting, Tam Chai Yat, Pun Cheung Shi, Young Ho. Wong Ping Tng, Chan Ka Ming, Chan Ka On, and Chau Shing Lee, all of Victoria in the Colony of Hongkong, Property Owners.
Sheweth :-
1. That your petitioners are proprie- tors of domestic tenements in Hongkong and desire to point out to Your Excel- lency and Honourable Members of the Legislative Council certain objections to the proposed Ordinance to amend the law relating to the recovery of possession in certain cases and to restrict the rents of certain domestic tenements and to 1901 amend the Rating Ordinance, (hereinafter called the Bill").
2. Your petitioners verily believe that their views as expressed in this petition are shared by a large majority of the owners of domestic tenements in Hong- kong.
no guarantee contained in the Bill that a similar Bill will not be passed in the near future bringing such newly erected Your property within its provisions. petitioners, therefore, humbly beg to submit that a provision be added to the Bill providing that all buildings now in course of erection or hereafter to be erected shall be excluded from the pro- visions of this or any Bill to the like effect for a period of at least 15 years.
4.-Your petitioners also humbly beg to submit that this Bill if passed will cause a serious fall in the value of
domestic tenements and that a consider- able loss will fall on those persons who have recently purchased property on the basis of the rentals now prevailing in the Colony.
5. Your petitioners further humbly submit that the Ordinance should not be made retrospective but that the stand- ard rent should be the rent payable on the coming into force of the Bill which should not be a date earlier than the date upon which the Ordinance receives the assent of His Excellency the Gover- nor for the following reasons:-
(a) That purchasers of property since the 31st day of December, 1920, have purchased the same on the basis of the rentals payable at the time of purchase and on the basis of the rents which your petitioners knew the tenants were willing to pay in respect of the properties occupied by them.
(b) That mortgagees have lent money
on such properties the amount of loan being based upon the value of the property calculated on the rents receivable at the time of the mortgage and on the saleable value of similar property in the open market which value W&s based not only upon the rentals then paid but on the demand for domestic tenements in Hongkong.
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