48
legal owners of such land upon payment of an appropriate
fee for the issue of a title deed. They have also enjoyed
unrestricted right of access to the water and in many treaty
ports have built wharves and godowns of great value in order
to make the fullest use of their water frontage. In recent
years, however, the Chinese authorities, partly in
consequence of a genuine extension of the sphere of
governmental activity and partly in pursuance of the policy
referred to above, have shown a disposition to question the
validity of the doctrine that water frontage rights are
inherent in the ownership of a riparian lot and have refused
in some cases to issue a title deed for accreted land which
the riparian owner has desired to "shengko" in the usual way.
Cases of this description have recently occurred at Shanghai,
Swatow and Canton. At each of these places, particularly
at Shanghai, the interests at stake are very large.
4.
His Majesty's Government realise that it may not
be possible ultimately to contest the right of the Chinese
Government to charge licence fees to riparian owners for the
use of their water frontage. There is however a serious
danger that, once this principle has been admitted, the fees
may be arbitrarily varied or even increased until they are
tantamount to confiscation. A most strenuous resistance to
the Chinese demands has therefore been made at the above-
mentioned ports.
5.
The argument that has proved most effective in
enabling His Majesty's Government to maintain the present
position intact has been to appeal to the practice and the
legislation of other countries. In these circumstances it
will be readily understood that serious misgivings are felt
with regard to clauses 6 and 7 of the draft Ordinance which
give
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