TNAG-0806-FCO40-1011-Policy-of-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-land-in-the-New-Territo-1979 — Page 46

G.F. 323

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life would not be threatened by the change from a Manchu

to a British overlord. The Colony's administrators at

that time probably foresaw the need for "public offices

and fortifications" but not much else. Certainly they

could not have foreseen anything like the pressures for

development both by the Government and private owners that

were subsequently to arise. It is for these reasons that

the Convention, the 3lock Crown Lease, and the assurances

given to the people are not helpful, to say the least, in

settling questions arising from the acquisition of private

land on a prodigous scale necessary before implementation

of the present development programmes in the New Territories

can take place.

6.

Powers for the resumption of leased land are

prescribed in the Crown Lands Resumption Ordinance. The

Ordinance has provided and continues to provide an

adequate means of resuming and compensating for building

land in Hong Kong and Kowloon. However, the Ordinance on

its own, and in its present form, does not provide a means

of peaceful and speedy resumption of rural land in either

New Kowloon or the New Territories. As a result, other

methods of acquiring land in these areas were devised.

Thus in 1962, in recognition of this weakness

of the Crown Lands Resumption Crdinance in providing for

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