Sessional_Paper_1901 — Page 596

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Section 15. When in any District, the Land Court has got in and decided on all claims, persons occupping without any title may fairly be treated as trespassers from such date as may be notified by the Governor.

Section 16 gives a right of appeal when the value of the claim is over $5,000. Section 17 leaves the settlement of forms of title to be granted to the Governor.

Sections 18, 19 and 20 deal with the numerous cases where the occupier has to pay in produce instead of money. This form of payment is undesirable and leads to unfair treatment of many of the occupiers and dissatisfaction.

Section 21 enables the Governor to make, from time to time, all snch appointments as as may be necessary for the proper efficiency of the Court.

W. MEIGH GOODMAN,

Attorney-General.

Ordinance No. 18 of 1900.

Objects and Reasons.

Ordinance 8 of 1900, providing for a Land Court for the purpose of hearing and determining claims in relation to luml in the New Territories was assented to by the Governor on 28th March, 1900. It was duly submitted for Her Majesty's directions, and the Ordinance, generally, was approved but the following amendments, on minor points, were suggested by the Secretary of State as desirable :-

(a.) The substitution, in section 18, of the words "by the Governor in Executive Council

for the words by the Court", in relation to the fixing the rate of money rent in substitution of rent in produce. This is because the Court is not intended to be a permanent institution.

(b.) Provision being made, in section 19, for allowing payment of an annual money rent as an alternative to the payment of a capital sum, in cases of the redemption of a pro- duce rent payable in perpetuity.

(c.) The addition of a section providing that the Court shall be brought to an end as soon

as the work for which it is appointed has been performed.

Ordinance 8 of 1900 is repeated by this Ordinance and re-enacted with the amendments men- tioned. One other amendment has been made, at the suggestion of the Members of the Land Court, They thought it desirable that the value of disputed claims, which might be dealt with by one member of the Court, should be raised, with a view to expediting the business of the Court. The maximum bus, accordingly, beca raised from two hundred to five hundred dollars. Appointments made under Ordinance 8 of 1900 have been continued as valid, and, in order to prevent any confu- sion in citing Ordinance 8 of 1900 and the present Ordinance by their short titles, the short title to the present Ordinance has been changed to "The New Territories Land Court Ordinance, 1900.”

W. MEIGH GOODMAN,

Attorney-Gencral.

Ordinance No. 30 of 1900.

Objects and Reasons.

The portion of the New Territories, between Laichikok and Junk Bay which for the most part drains in a southerly direction from the Kowloon Mountain Range, is so closely connected with what used to be known as British Kowloon, that it is desirable that the laws in force in the latter should apply equally to the former district.

It may, at first sight, appear that it will be difficult to enforce compliance at once with all the -requirements of some of the Ordinances which were declared by Ordinance No. 10 of 1899 not to apply to the New Territories. All that is really required, however, is consideration and tact in the administration of such laws; and the alternative would appear to be either to leave the district in question with no Sanitary, Building, or Licensing laws or else to pass new Ordinances applying only to that district. The latter course would be to make one set of laws applicable to the Colony generally, a second set to part of the New Territories, and a third set applicable to the rest of such New Territorios.

It is difficult to see why laws applicable to the southern half of a village like Sam Shui Po. for instance, should not be equally capable of application to its northern half.

Section 4 is intended to meet cases, such as sections 13, 54, 55, and 57 of Ordinance. No, 24 of 1887, where such expressions as the villages and rural districts of Hongkong and Kowloon used; and section 5 deals with evidence.

W. MEIGH GOODMAN,

Attorney General.

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