Sessional_Paper_1905 — Page 725

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I will deal first with the different valuations of the land, altogether apart from the buildings, made by the Claimants. The first valuation which I will deal with is the valuation by Mr. Orange. Mr. Orange says, or suggests, (because I shall show that he is an unreliable guide), the land was worth $5 per toot, prior to the Reclamation, and $2.50 per foot after the Reclamation. By Reclamation, I refer to the Reclamation in front of the Lot in question. Well, Mr. Ram suggests as a value prior to Reclamation $4 per square foot, and, as regards value after the Reclamation, I do not know that he gave us any definite informa tion, but I think he is disposed to guide himself by what the land would have averaged in the Market, and, it is important in dealing with Mr. Ram's evidence, to consider the admission that he has made in his Report, namely, that he (Mr. Ram) considered the actual sale which was made by Messrs. Howard and Stephens as being forced. There is no doubt that Mr. Ram, both in his Report and evidence, spoke of the sale which took place in 1899 as being a sale at a forced price, and I think Mr. Ram agreed with me that the price at which this property was disposed of 15 months afterwards, namely, $146,000, would be more equivalent to the real value of the land.

Well, now to come to Mr. Turner. Mr. Turner, as regards the value of the Lot before Reclamation, gave us anything, I submit, between $3.00 to $3.50 per square foot.

It will be remembered that his written Report deals with the value after reclamation, but I naturally asked him what he considered the value prior to Reclamation, and he referred us to some other Lot which he said had been partly reclaimed, which he valued at $3 per square foot, and there might have to be some- thing added for completing the Reclamation, and I think be put an extra 50 cents on for that. Therefore, I think you can put Mr. Turuer's value down at from $3 to $3.50 prior to Reclamation. Well, I think after these different values are put side by side, they will shew the very speculative nature of the evidence which has been given by the Claimants' experts in this case. There is a very wide margin between these different values, and I submit they are indulging to a great extent in speculation, and it must be borne in mind that these opinions are speculative, and that they cannot be taken as reliable with regard to the land, when we remember that each of these witnesses who have been called on behalf of the Claimants have arrived at the value of the land after Reclamation, on the erroneous basis that the land would be altogether useless, after Reclama- tion had taken place, for the purpose of Godowns. It therefore follows that we cannot accept what I might call for the sake of convenience, the post-reclamation valuations which have been put upon the property by the experts called on be- half of the Claimants. Obviously, those reports were made in the honest belief that the property would not be worth practically anything for Go- downs after the Reclamation Works had been completed, whereas, the evidence demonstrates the exact opposite, and the Members of this Tribunal have seen for themselves that these premises are used at the present day for Godowns. In other words, the Claimants' experts have valued the Lot with the Reclamation in front of it, as an Inland Lot, much too low. Now, to come to Mr. Orange's observations on these three different sets of values, I propose to analyse them separately in detail. Mr. Orange's valuation is $5 per foot prior to Reclamation. Well, as I pointed out, that does not agree with and is considerably higher than the valuation of the other experts-Messrs. Ram and Turner. Mr. Orange's theory is founded upon four theories, and I will deal with these theories in detail. The first value is based upon the theory that the Government offered a sum of $5 per square foot for 339 square feet in 1887. That offer, as my learned friend quite justly observed, was owing to the fact that the Government had made a mistake in grauting 339 feet of land to two different people. As a result of that mistake, there was a law suit between Messrs. Howard and Stephens and a neighbouring Marine Lot Holder, and Messrs. Howard and Stephens lost, and it was a matter of the Government paying a fancy price to Messrs Howard and Stephens, and, 'considering the circumstances under which the Government granted this amount, it was really not a matter of much importance whether they paid $3, $4, or $5, especially as the quantity of land was so small. So much for the first valuation which Mr. Orange brings forward to support his valuation of $5 per foot. The second theory is in connection with the Reclamation of certain Marine Lots, namely, Nos. 95, 96, 97, 98 and 105, which are mentioned specifically in the Praya Reclamation Ordinance. Our answer to that is that that is no real criterion of