CO129-489 - Governor Sir Stubbs & Sir Clementi - 1925 [8-12] — Page 23

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only, and for no other purposes whatsoever.

8.

That this view of the position of the landholders of

these districts is consistent with the legal position into which

your Petitioners, with the other inhabitants of the New Territories,

have been forced by the legislative action of the Government of

Hongkong; but is not consistent either with equity or with the Con-

vention of 1898 as the following recital shows.

At the date of the said Convention the Landholders in

the New Territories held their land according to Chinese

tenure by grant from the Crown as freehold; and this te-

nure was recognised by the Government in Hongkong, after

a careful investigation into the state of land tenure in

the Territory. The Government in 1902, after the conclu-

sion of the said investigation, passed the New Territories

Titles Ordinance, in which it was enacted by Section 4,tha

a customary landholder should be deemed to have a periia-

nent,heritable,and transferable,right of use and occupa-

tion in his customary land subject only to certain reser-

vations. These reservations were as follows:-

(A)

(B)

to the payment of all such Crown Rent,land tax, or

assessment as might from time to time be imposed in

respect of customary land.

to the reservation in favour of the Crown of all

mines and mineral products and of all buried trea-

Bure,with full liberty to work and search for the

same, paying to the customary landholder such com-

pensation for any damage occasioned thereby as might

be assessed by the Registrar;

(c)

to the reservation in favour of the Crown of the

right of making roads,drains, and sewers, and laying

down water pipes and gas pipes,carrying electric,

3.

telephone