CO129-489 - Governor Sir Stubbs & Sir Clementi - 1925 [8-12] — Page 22

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in-Council may decide to be a public purpose.

4. That the Government is resuming the lands in question

for the purpose of laying out roads, and developing the land for

building purposes, and that the building sites available, after the

land has been laid out and levelled, are sold by the Government as

building land.

5. That the development of land for building purposes and

the sale of it,although covered by the extremely wide language of

the Crown Lands Resumption Ordinance,is not an official purpose

contemplated by the aforesaid Convention, which your Petitioners

contend,contemplated only such permanent official purposes as roads

fortifications,Government buildings etc., and that the Convention

contemplated free purchase of lands required for such purposes,and

not compulsory resumption.

6. That the Crown Lands Resumption Ordinance contains pro-

visions for the appointment of Boards of Arbitration to determine

the amount of compensation to be paid to the persons whose land is

resumed under that Ordinance. And that such Boards are duly consti-

tuted and their awards are duly carried out by the Government of

Hongkong.

7.

That the Boards have adopted a fixed method of valuing

cultivated land in this district for the purpose of compensation.

Awards are made upon a scale of values ranging from 5 cents per

foot in respect of the best class of agricultural land downwards;

and under no circumstances is more than five cents per foot ever

awarded by the Boards as the value of the land, even though the

market value of the land prior to resumption is several times that

figure. This value is arrived at by taking the annual value of the

crop that the land would produce, if it were used for purely agri- cultural purposes,and capitalising it. The figure thus arrived at

is deemed sufficient compensation for the owners, on the ground that the owners are entitled to use their land for agricultural purposes

2.

only