Guim Land Assessment Committee have fsaued their report. In consequence of the amount of work to be done in getting out the schedules, these will not be ready for the forthcoming meeting of rate-payers; but any inconvenience likely to arise from thin cause, har been met by the preparation of general schedule which lies at the Council office for public inspection, The Committee have based their assess ment upon a valuation of Tls. 6,000 per mow for Bund lots, and, making due allowance for position, rate the back part of the English settlement at Tls. 120 per mow. The Hong valuations begin with frontage lots at Tls. 1,500 a mow, and run down as low as Tls. 90. This Committee seems anxious to avoid the error, into which its predecesser had fallen, of giving undue weight to exceptionally favourably situated plots of ground, and forming from them a fictitious basis, leading to an erroneous and faulty assessment. They say in regard to this point.
"As the valuation placed on the to caret re} & com ive assess-several lots, the Committe' iret object was nent of the entire area of the two Settlements occupied by foreign renters. In this, every consideration of distance from a central point, of ready access, availability for building pi and relative value compared with neighbouring; ies, was taken into consideration. Tt did not, however, teem advisable tothe Committee to place too great an importance on merely accident tal Siroumetances, such as. the style of building on a property or in its neigh hood, which may have exercised a. special influence on any lots compared with others in its immediate vicinity. On the contrary, the labours of the Committee were dev to the preparation of a schedule which as possible, the exceptional inthe Committee fel aged it best subserved the public interest, by looking to permanent considerations of locality and accessibility, rather than to temporary influences."
So that the accuracy of the assessment must be judged from the whole. An important point raised in the report, is the necessity for some more accurate definition of the lots; and s memorandum by Mr. Kingsmill, "on the proposed amendment of Land Registration in Shanghai," which is appended tothe Report, contains useful suggestions to this end. He proposes the formation of a Land Office under the authority of, and in connexion with the Municipal Council, but without at all trench ing on the system of Consular registry that all land plans should be deposited in this office, and that it should be the duty of the officer in charge to make himself acquainted with the position and circumstances of all land within the Settlement limits; that all transfers should be registered in the cilice, as a preliminary to registration in the Consulate; and that property shall be surveyed and plans furnished by the Official in charge, for a certain stated fee. The Council endorse the suggestion that a Land Office should be formed; and we agree that such a measure is most likely to obviate the complications which the Committee foreshadow, and to prevent the recurrence of the difficulties which have been experienced in drawing up the Land Plans that have been just completed. We are glad to hear that these are now in good order, and trust that they will, in future, be kept carefully up. Eventually, some organised machinery for this purpose will become imperative; and delay in adopting the Committee's suggestion will only lead to confusion; the plans so recently got in order will become faulty, and fresh time, trouble and expense will ensue, The Valuation Schedule will take the form of a General Land List of all land owned by foreigners in both settlements we trust that small plans will be prepared and issued at a reasonable price as soon 2s circumstances permit. Registering Chinese owned land, within foreign limits, would also go far towards perfecting the registration system. Some of the new roads proposed in the Council's budget would domnch towards assisting the definition of lots, besides being very desirable for Police purposes. We hope that the Council will be able to arrange with the Consuls for the collection of Chinese Government Land Tax. Such an arrangement would free us from the terrible infliction of the periodical visits of the Chinese collectors, who generally select the busiest time for their calls; and changes of te-paos, such as that noticed by us yesterday, would become matter of indifference. would only have one payment to make instead of two, with the advantage of having before us what we were paying for, and to whom we were paying it.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.