Resettlement_Department_Annual_Report_1959-1960 — Page 16

!

Land cultivated without a permit, the cultivator is not legally entitled to any compensation. In October 1954, however, it was decided that crop compensation should also be payable as an ex-gratia measure to illegal cultivators because of the virtual impossibility of their finding other land to cultivate. In April 1957, it was decided also to pay an additional special ex-gratia allowance, the amount of which depends on the length of time the cultivator has been in occupation and the area of land cultivated.

33. The first step in carrying out a cultivation clearance is to make an accurate plan, on the scale of twenty feet to the inch, showing the boundaries and exact areas of each cultivated plot. When this has been completed by the department's Works Section the crops on the ground are identified by an officer of the Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Department and the amount of crop compensation, based on the current market price of the various crops, is assessed. To the value of crops is added the special ex-gratia allowance for land disturbance: sixty cents per square foot is paid to a cultivator for land which he has been cultivating since before the Japanese occupation in 1941 and ten cents per square foot for land opened thereafter and before October 1954. After this date no compensation is payable. This is determined after the cultivator has been interviewed at the Secretariat for Chinese Affairs. It is the usual practice to pay the ex-gratia compensation one week before the land is required. Where both squatters and cultivation are being cleared the two operations must be planned to coincide.

34. The majority of the clearances undertaken during the year were to free land required for resettlement estates and factories, these clear- ances being given priority as without a continuing supply of resettlement accommodation it would not be possible to clear the sites needed for all the other forms of development. The two largest clearances during the year were those for new resettlement estates at Tung Tau and at Wang Tau Hom.

35. The clearances for the first stage of Tung Tau Estate started in June and were completed in December, when the resumption of private land in the area became effective. The site, which was 12.92 acres in extent, was cleared in six phases. The clearance was unusually varied, involving squatters on Crown Land, squatters in illegal structures on private land, settlers in the Tung Tau cottage area, legal private houses, small factories, and six large soy and fruit preserving factories. The majority of the structures were built of stone and exceptionally densely packed with people. There were an unusually large number of 'imposters'

10