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5. Your Petitioner has constructed and maintained efficiently its tram- ways to the full extent required and allowed by the Ordinance referred to above. It has at all times during the thirty-three years of its history faithfully fulfilled the obligations laid upon it by that Ordinance and as demanded by developing require- ments of the public traffic.
your
6. Over the last twenty years ending 31st December, 1934, Petitioner has further expended in the cost of development, extension, moderni- sation and improvements (exclusive of maintenance) the sum of $3,864,374. Over the same period maintenance and upkeep of the capital assets laid down in the tram- way undertaking have cost the additional sum of $3,760,907.
7. Despite the fact that the Ordinance permits of stage-distance fares in three classes at considerably higher rates your Petitioner's fares, for the past twenty-seven years, have been at the flat rate of 10 cents first class and 5 cents second class for any distance of the through terminus to terminus run of all cars at all times.
8. Under the terms of s. 47 of the governing Ordinance your Petitioner, commencing from 22nd September, 1914, is committed to a Government Royalty of five per cent (5%) of its working profits. Total royalties so paid to the Government of Hong Kong from that date up to 31st December, 1934, have amount- ed to the sum of $707,273.88.
9. As further provided in the same section of the Ordinance such Royalty as from 22nd September, 1939, will be computed at a rate increased from five (5) to twenty-five (25) per centum.
10. Your petitioner begs-preliminary to setting out the terms of this Petition -to lay before you an account of events leading up to the present position which, in your Petitioner's opinion, indicate since the year 1928-an arbitrary and unfair attitude on the part of the Colonial Government towards the long established interests of your Petitioner.
11. It may well be asked why your Petitioner did not press its appeal to you at that time which your Petitioner claims to be the date of initial injustice. In truth the reasons were your Petitioner's grave reluctance, as a British Company directed by a Board of prominent resident British merchants and business men (with their own personal business and commercial interests within the Colony) controlled and managed, operated and staffed by British-born and British-trained officials (though, of course, a considerable proportion of its capital is naturally held by resident share- holders of Chinese race-whether British subjects or otherwise), to run the risk of incurring the serious disfavour of the immediate authority and its permanent senior officials. Further, your Petitioner felt confident that the strong representations which were promptly made would result in fair and equitable consideration being given to the claims of your Petitioner.
12. The first grievance of which your Petitioner complains occurred in the year 1928, namely-despite your Petitioner's long standing offers and applications relating to the precise routes concerned-the granting (on the recommendationg, it is believed, of the then Captain Superintendent of Police) to another party whose busi- ness was primarily that of Hotel proprietors of an exclusive licence for the institution of certain public motor bus services over routes of a directly competitive nature.
13. Your Petitioner does not claim that no other party should be permitted to operate Motor Buses but does emphatically claim it should have been given fair opportunity of negotiating the rights for such services.
14. Your Petitioner begs to refer you to important letters exchanged between Government and your Petitioner, namely, documents "B",
0 and D " of the
Appendices.
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From the first of these it will be read that your Petitioner's original request to operate motor buses (or railless trolley vehicles) along what is now known as the No. 5 motor-bus route was made on 12th February, 1925. From the second that the then Hon, the Colonial Secretary replied that the application could not be granted owing to the narrowness of the streets in question; and that the tramway services appeared to Government to be sufficient,
The third letter constitutes your Petitioner's renewed application (in the
same purpose) two and a half years later.
To this letter of 9th August, 1927, the only reply ever received was a printed form of acknowledgment of its receipt.
15.
Notwithstanding such refusal and without any opportunity given to submit representations your Petitioner learned later of Government's intention to grant a licence for a motor bus service over this extremely valuable route to another party in whose favour the previous objections (i.c., the narrowness of the thorough-
fares) were apparently ignored.
16. Thus on 15th October, 1928, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Hotels, Ltd., commenced the competitive No. 5 route motor-bus services and so far as your Petitioner is aware no Royalty was payable to Government by the licensee.
17. Whatever may have been the explanation of the volte face of the Hong Kong Government at this stage your Petitioner despite repeated representations to Government has never been able to ascertain it.
18. In view of the course events have taken subsequently and the progres- sive damage to your Petitioner's interests it is a matter of sincere regret to your Petitioner that it did not appeal to you for fair treatment, directly, at that time. Actually, at a meeting of your Petitioner's Board of Directors this course of action was discussed, but for reasons already explained and because it was considered politic to avoid friction with the Colonial Government, it was decided not to proceed. As subsequent events appear to show this was a mistake.
19. A regrettable feature of the situation is that your Petitioner now under- stands that the series of refusals to allow your Petitioner to run motor buses on this route turns out to have been ultra vires. Hence your Petitioner was diverted from the intentions of its original motor bus policy. Your Petitioner has been recently advised, having regard to the terms of Regulation No. 77 enacted on 27th June, 1924, by virtue of the Vehicles and Traffic Regulation Ordinance, No. 40 of 1912, that up to the time (ie., 11th June, 1928) of the granting of the licence to the Hong Kong and Shanghai Hotels, Ltd., there was no legal necessity to ask permission of the Government to run motor buses along the Queen's Road route.
All that was necės-
sary was the ordinary licence for a public vehicle.
20. A fuller account appears in separate memorandum form (as Appendix "E") of the seemingly arbitrary action taken by Government in 1928 constituting the preliminary breach between Government and your Petitioner; of your Peti- tioner's protests thereat; of the reluctant sanction obtained by your Petitioner to commence other motor bus services strictly limited to its own tramway routes; of consequential Petition of 16th December, 1929, to His Excellency the Governor Sir Cecil Clementi, K.C.M.G.; and of subsequent purchase negotiations with the Motor Bus
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