Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1954-1955 — Page 58

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broidery and most small-scale manual processes could be carried on in domestic resettlement rooms, and the minimum of restriction was applied to such activities. But many workshops were dependent on mechanical or chemical processes which could not be permitted in domestic accommodation. Squatters operat- ing such concerns were as far as possible offered sites in temporary resettlement areas where they could erect suitable temporary premises and carry on with their business. Many operated on a scale too large for this to be possible and in such cases every effort was made to arrange for suitable areas of Crown land to be allocated on permit by the Public Works Department. By the end of the year there remained virtually no more Crown land for this purpose, and the problem of dealing with such large workshops, or small factories, was becoming very serious. Squatter cultivators presented the most difficult pro- blem of all, for they had to be put out of business. The situation in the New Territories was that there were limited areas of marginal cultivable land which could be made productive at considerable expense but that the cost of resettling in this way all the cultivators who had to be moved from Kowloon and New Kowloon would be quite prohibitive. After much discussion it was decided that such squatter-cultivators should be given, as an ex-gratia measure, crop compensation and disturbance allowance calculated in the same way as if they had been the legal tenants of private agricultural land on resumption. This was to be a temporary measure only and was to be applied only to those cultivators who had to be removed at short notice. The decision to pay ex-gratia compensation in such cases was a difficult de- cision to take and it was not made easier by the fact that many of the cultivators concerned, although they had no legal rights whatever, adopted a somewhat truculent attitude. It was however a reasonable decision, for the great majority of these market-gardeners had been established on their holdings for many years and had put a good deal of effort into the improve- ment of the land. Many had formerly held permits to farm the land and most had a moral claim to some compensation. The cost of the compensation amounted to less than $10,000 an acre on the average, which was negligible in comparison with the value of the land.

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