CO129-514-6 Question of legality of sale of water to Tai Koo Sugar Refining Co. Ltd.- from... 6-12-1928 - 23-12-1929 — Page 25

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agents in Hong Kong, and the letter of the 15th May 1893

in reply to the letter of the 12th May appears to accept

this position as nothing is said to the contrary in such

letter. Unfortunately, having stated that the water

abstracted was to be for private use only, the Government

seem to have done nothing further in the subsequent

negotiations and the documents entered into to provide

for this.

In accordance with the mode of disposition

of property by the Crown which obtains in Hong Kong the

property was put up for sale by public auction under

Conditions which were prepared and published in the

Government Gazette of the 24th June 1893. At the auction,

which was held on the 11th July 1895, the Company purchased

and on the 2nd September the sale was carried into effect

under the Conditions by the grant of the Lease of that

date. In neither the Conditions of Sale nor the lease

was any reference made to the fact that the water to be

used by the Company, if they constructed a reservoir on

the property purchased and abstracted water, was to be

used for private purposes only, nor did the Conditions or

the lease contain any restriction whatsoever as to the user

of the water, in fact the lease did not refer to the water

at all. Subsequently the directors of the Company in

London seem to have become apprehensive that the lease did

not give them rignts and privileges as to water which they

had bargained for, and on the 15th May 1896 the Hong Kong

managers of the Company wrote to the Colonial Secretary

stating that there had been an omission in the lease of any

reference to water privileges accorded to them in connection

with it and requesting to have the lease amended. This

letter contains a suggested form of amendment. The suggested

form gave the Company power to collect and impound water

in any reservoir constructed on the demised land and divert

streams, but it did not contain any suggestion that the

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