TNAG-0806-FCO40-1011-Policy-of-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-land-in-the-New-Territo-1979 — Page 50

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enhanced the value of the exchange; cash is not accepted

and the exchange commitment has not been diminished as a

result of this enhanced cash offer. It is a staircase of

escalating values.

12.

It is probable, had the exchange system

functioned as originally conceived, that landowners would

have been satisfied with the system and Government policy

and practice would not have been challenged.

However

failure to meet the exchange commitment has led to the

very basis of Government's land resumption policies being

challenged.

13.

This challenge has been mounted principally

by the Heung Yee Kuk whose members as landowners have

naturally a vested interest in an outcome more satisfactory

to themselves.

However that is not the whole story,

criticism has been levelled, in the past few years, at

Government's policy of "expropriating" village lands; at

the need to pay a premium to develop; at interference with

owners' rights to do what they wish with their land; and

on the refusal to permit in-situ exchanges.

14.

More recently in a representation to the

Minister of State the Heung Yee Kuk included in their

submission legal opinion, written by prominent Counsel in

CONFIDENTIAL

/Hong

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