JATIONAL
FOR
SCHEME
MEN
DISABLED
119/Abroad/1245 (L.B.)
за
The War Office,
H
REJEIVED
Whitehall
W.
2912
30 JUL 1938
July, 1936.
29
10
Conry to H. Rony-
Dear Mr. Gent,
0.0.REGY
سماك
Mr. Newling has passed on to us your letter of the 7th July about the tenure of certain areas at Hong Kong.
Let me say at the outset that we should be very unwilling to cause any soreness on the part of the Colonial Government, especially as they have done a good deal to help the Department in connection with the new cantonment area. Some features of the proposals now in question seem to us, however, to be clearly contrary to past practice and to the equities of the case; but your objection to our reply is possibly due to a misunderstanding as to the War Department's contention.
May I comment first on paragraph 2 of your letter under reply, in which you say "such costs of resumption are still borne as a matter of course by the War Department, but the fact is not held to entitle the Department to sell the land for cash when it ceases to have a use for it".
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The so-called resumption is in fact the purchase at the War Department's expense of somebody else's leasehold interest. Our position, and I think you will agree that it is not unreasonable, is that we then stand in the late lessee's shoes, with this difference that in accordance with long-standing rules the Colonial Government waive the payment of the ground rent; but in the event of our selling the residue of our lease to some new lessee then the ground rent would be re-imposed on the purchaser. We agree with you that the mere fact of paying the costs of resumption (e.g., dispossessing squatters) would not entitle us to sell the land for cash if the land had not been leased but had been handed over to us as Colonial military land; and even where we wished to sell the leasehold interest we should not, of course, be selling the freehold.
G.E.J. Gent Esq., Dr.
Colonial Office,
Downing Street, S.W.1.
With/
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