Sessional_Paper_1886-1887 — Page 518

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APPENDIX TO REPORT FROM THE LAND COMMISSION OF 1886-87.

ground was formerly bought by you from the Government afterwards the Government sold it by auction on account of your owing certain amounts for Crown rent. WONG YEE bought the said ground at auction without a title deed, and I bought it from WONG YEE but there was no deed of transfer given either to WONG YEE nor to me.

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Now, dear Sir, have you got the old deed in your hands and if so I shall be very grateful if you will kindly bring it with you as soon as possible to my house at Hongkong. If the deed is missing I beg of your goodness to come and give satisfactory proof that the ground is yours. The passage expenses on your coming here, and going back, I shall repay heavily, I hope you will not refuse. Herewith I enclose one dollar, please examine and receive. Hoping you are getting riches and enjoying health. (A. card enclosed named TANG WAI CHING).

(Translation.)

To HAK SHUN, my benevolent brother,

HONGKONG, 16th May, 1876.

I respectfully state that I bought a piece of ground from WONG YEE, Inland Lot No. 323, situate at Wanchai, with three houses thereon. It was originally your ground, you left it to WONG YEE to live there. Because five quarters Crown rent were owing, therefore Government sold the ground by auction. WONG YEE says he has bought it at auction but there is no deed granted to him. Certainly WONG YEE did not buy it at auction. The deed is registered in your name. Crown rent is paid regularly by me in your name. Now the Government used the ground for forming a market and gave a piece of ground at Saiyingpún in exchange, but I have no deed for the ground in my hands therefore Govern- ment object to issue a deed to me and say a deed must be made to be signed by you before the exchange is undertaken. I send Mr. Woo SAM to your house and beg you will come to Hongkong with him. I shall give you one hundred dollars for your trouble. Hoping you are getting riches and enjoying good health, in haste.

(Signed) TANG HOG KAI.

(Seal) TANG YUNE CHEONG:

Upon receipt of the last of these letters the plaintiff came down and it would seen that upon the plaintiff refusing to part with his interest in the land for $100 and finding that the plaintiff had no title deeds in his possession the defend- ant closed with WONG YEE for $150 and their surrender of the land was accepted by the Government and a new grant given to the defendant for the land which had been agreed to be given him in exchange. The plaintiff at once took the two letters to Mr. HOLMES to commence proceedings against the defendant and those letters have been in Mr. HOLMES' possession ever since. At the trial the defendant swore himself and produced witnesses to prove that the original owner of the land was not the plaintiff Ow YEONG KWON SEK, the son of the person to whom he had written, but Ow YEONG Kwon or KUM SEK, a carpenter who had not been heard of for many years, but I was not satisfied with the evidence. The cause has now been pending for several years since, and during all that time no better evidence can be produced by the defendant, because, I presume, no better can be obtained, and I do not see how the defendant can get over the state- ments made in his letters which he eventually admit ted were written by his direction, he well knowing the person to whom they were addressed to be the father of the plaintiff, unless he can explain how it was that he came to make such a mistake as to suppose that the plaintiff's father had anything to do with the land in question if he new all the time that it was owned by quite a different person. Several technical objections as to the admission of evidence were taken by the Attorney General, which I decided to overrule upon the trial and which decision, upon consideration, I have seen no reason to alter, and although it would have been much more satisfactory if the plaintiff had been able to produce his title deeds, yet as between him and the defendant I do not see that he ought to lose his land because he has been unable to do so. It would also have been much more satisfactory, and this case never could have arisen, if the Crown had exercised its rights years ago and entered on possession of this land. But I have to deal with matters as they stand. The plaintiff has made out to my satisfaction that he was the person in whom the land was vested in 1851, and it is admitted that since then he has done nothing to part with his rights to the land in question and that the statute of limitations does not apply in his case. That being so the question remains as to what redress he should receive. It seems to me in- equitable that under the particular circumstances of this case he should recover either the value of the original piece of the land with the improvements effected thereon or that he should recover the pieces of land which the Government have given the defendant in exchange for the original piece of land together with the improvements effected by the defendant, and it was so admitted by the plaintiff's counsel. The order of the court will be therefore such as was suggested by the plaintiff's counsel, viz.: that it be referred to the Registrar to ascertain the value of the land apart from any buildings thereon at the time it was taken over by the Government, and that the defendant shall pay to the plaintiff the amount which shall be so found to be such value, together with the costs of this suit. The defendant would have found it cheaper to have settled with the plaintiff in the first instance than to have paid $150 to WONG YEE for joining in the surrender to the Crown especially if the defendant's story was true, which appears to have been mentioned for the first time at the trial, namely that he had documents in Chinese in his possession which could not be admitted in evidence as he was not prepared with proof of their execution, but which shewed that WONG YEE had assigned to TANG ALOK his whole interest in the land many years before the surrender was made by WONG YEE and TANG ALOK to the Crown.