ENG-1963 — Page 27

12

REVIEW

districts of Tsim Sha Tsui and Yau Ma Tei, and the original leases of many lots in these areas have thus expired in the last 20 years. New leases extending the lease term for a period of 75 years from the original expiry date have been granted, on mutually agreed terms, for the great majority of the lots so far affected. In a few cases where special circumstances require or make it desirable, leases are issued for short periods; for example, 10 and 21 year recreational leases, 21 year leases of petrol filling and service stations, and 11 year leases of sawmill sites affecting Crown foreshore.

Manner of payment

In addition to the method of disposal and length of lease, the manner in which the Government has required purchasers to pay for their land is of fundamental importance. In the early years no lump sum payment was required, bidding at auction being for an amount of annual rent. In 1849, following the Parliamentary Commission of two years before, a committee was appointed to report upon land tenure generally and to consider if Crown rent was extravagant and whether it would not be in the interest of the Colony to reserve a portion only of the price in the form of rental, the competition to turn on the premium offered. The com- mittee reported in 1850 and the following year Earl Grey directed that 'as regards the system of selling Crown lands to the highest bidder of an annual rent he was decidedly of the opinion that, in future, biddings for Crown lands shall not be in the form of an advance of rent, but that any such property should be offered for lease at a moderate rent to be determined by the Crown Sur- veyor and that the competition should be in the amount to be paid down as a premium for the leases at the rent so reserved'. This practice has been followed ever since. It has led to the crea- tion of a series of arbitrary 'zone rents' applicable to particular districts, rarely revised and unrelated to the actual economic annual value of the land in question. Thus in 1939 the zone rent for the whole of the City of Victoria was $1,000 an acre a year and at the present day the zone rent applicable in the southern part of Kowloon is $5,000 an acre a year.

The Government has normally required payment of the premium within three days of the day of sale, a deposit of 10 per cent of