11
11.
The memorialists are residents of New
Kowloon, in which district development has been taking place on an unprecedented scale. Hills are being levelled, valleys raised, roads driven, water courses divertel and trained, drainage laid, and hugh reclamations are being made, all of which work is costing an enormous sum of money. If, as is now most unlikely, the extraordinary prosperity of recent years should continue, the Government should recover its outlay with some profit, but the demand for land has been falling off very rapidly and it may happen that the Government will not get back, in actual cash, the money which it spends. The petitioners appear to hold the view, as expressed in paragraphs 19 and 20 of their memorial, that the Government will lose nothing if it gets free of cost the land required for roads and returns the balance to the original holders, but they forget to take into account the cost of preparing the land for building purposes. It is quite possible that the event will show that the total return to the Government from land sales in New Kowloon, when the lay-out is complete, will not cover the cost of resumption at the rates now paid and the cost of making the lay-out.
12. With regard to paragraph 18 of the memorial, the Government is fully prepared, wherever possible, to exchange agricultural land in a development area for similar land in a rural district, with liberal compensation for buildings and crops. It has recently removed an entire village in connection with waterworks development, has built new houses of a much superior type, has provided fertile land, and has given most ample compensation for disturbance. In New Kowloon a number of small dairy
farmers have been oustel from their holdings, and arrangements have been made and accepted to give them
better
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