Sessional_Paper_1902 — Page 657

terms of one customary mortgage and another are all provided for. the claim form now in use.

I attach (Appendix B) a copy

Deeds and other proofs of title are filed with the various claims. In disputes, any claimant wł is dissatisfied with the statement of his case allowed by the Court form, is allowed to attach a petitic containing additional particulars.

As hills, graves, foreshore, &c., usually lie outside the limits of the cadastral survey, special arrang ments have been made by which such claims can be presented to the Court prior to survey. The claims are of all kinds, .., of a village to grazing rights, or to a village site, of a family to buryir rights, of capitalists to fishing and foreshore rights and the like. Rights to cut trees have also bee claimed. These undemarcated claims often encroach on demarcated areas; they sometimes conflict al: inter se.

Conflicting, or seemingly conflicting, statements have been found in claims presented to the Cour Some of these have been due to the ignorance of the claimants: to the indefiniteness or unimportan of the interest claimed; or to clerical errors. To reconcile these statements without the necessity of formal hearing in Court, the Ordinance has been amended by Ordinance 27 of 1901 so as to allow th Registrar to summon lot-holders for a preliminary enquiry. In this way apparent disputes are beir weeded out from those in which there are really contested issues, in order that the latter may con before the Court in due course. The success of claim taking on the mainland has been chiefly du to the zeal and energy of Mr. J. R. Wood, who as Registrar has been in charge of the Tai Pó branc -office throughout the year.

7. Immediately after the expiry of the last day fixed for the reception of claims, there are availab the materials of a Rent Roll as follows :—

(1.) All uncontested claims to agricultural land.

(2.) All lots shown in the cadastral maps for which no claims have been laid. For the unclaimed lots the particulars of ownership must be obtaind from the demarcatic registers.

To these are added, from time to time as disputed claims are disposed of, all those lots which beir in dispute have been held over for the decision of the Court. These do not, however, average more tha about 4 per cent. of the whole.

per cent.

.

In the Tai Pó (No. VI) Survey District there are in all 29,344 demarcated lots. Of these, 25,40 have been formally claimed by the cultivators, leaving a balance of 3,862 lots unclaimed, or about 13.1

I attribute this high percentage of lots unclaimed principally to the instructions given the Demarcators that all ground under actual or recent cultivation is to be mapped and given a l number, whether an owner is immediately forthcoming or not. This plan obviates the necessity going back later to survey lots omitted originally because an owner was not forthcoming; but it ha also entailed the survey of much poor cultivation in the occupation of mere squatters who are in r hurry to assume the burdens of ownership.

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8. It will, I think, be recognized that the training of an adequate staff, together with the experimen necessary for the proper co-ordination of the Demarcation and Survey parties, was calculated to absor several months in preliminary operations.

Moreover the principles by which the validity of a claim was to be tested could be none other tha those of the Law of China and it was necessary for the Court to make itself familiar with the gener provisions of that Law no less than with the local customs modifying its operation within the area be dealt with under the Ordinance.

It is not necessary at this stage to describe at length the adequacy or otherwise of the materia ready to the hand of an enquirer into Chinese Land Tenure, but it will be easily understood that som months had gone by before we were in a position to hold formal sittings for the adjudication of claims.

First Formal Sittings of the Court.

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9. It was not, in fact, till the 20th February, 1901, that I held a Court for the first time at Ma Wá Island to enquire into the local claims which were for the most part of minor importance; and furth similar sittings were held by me at frequent intervals on the Islands of Cheung Chau and Ping Chai The Full Court, composed of Mr. POLLOCK as President and myself as Member, held its first sitting: Lyeemoon on the 1st March, 1901, and we continued to sit either in the Chinese Temple at Sai Ïs Wán or in an empty shop-house at Ch'a Kwo Leng throughout the summer.

Lyeemoon to Kowloon City,

10. Most of the land in this neighbourhood is occupied either by the workmen in the stone quarrie which fringe the coast line for a space of more than four miles, or by petty cultivators residing in th villages of Sai Ts'ó Wán and Tái Kun Tong.

But little difficulty, however, was caused by either of these classes, the padi land being held on incor trovertible Chinese titles while the status of the quarrymen as licensees of the Chinese Government w fully established by their own headmen. The dry and shifting cultivation, on the other hand, we foun