ING that the land of the plaintiffs is held on "fangtans"
and competes with foreign-owned property and is taxable, Mr. R. T. Bryan, Jr., Municipal Advocate, addressed the Court of Consuls at some length yesterday afternoon at the adjourned hearing of the fan-tan' land case brought against the Council by four Chinese landowners, including a "tipao," for damages and for exemption from payment of land tax involving more than $1,000,000 -annually. The proceedings, which were held before Mr. E. A. Long, Secretary of the Consular Body and special commissioner appointed to take evidence in the case, were adjourned until tomorrow after one witness, Mr. Paul 'Y. Ru, Assistant Municipal Advocate, had been called.
Mr. Bryan declared that the argument of plaintiffs through their witnesses and counsel, Mr. Francis S. Liu, was that because Mr. Justice Beetham had stated that the Council had never collected land tax on "fan-tan" land, the Council is not now entitled to do so. "In other words", he continued", "they claim that it is contrary to custom to require the owners of fan-tan land to pay the land tax. This argument is founded upon a fallacious premise, for custom. is only applicable in civil matters where it is not contrary to law or public policy, "It is fundamental, elementary and axiomatic that where the power to tax has been delegated, the mere failure to use such power, no matter for how long @ period, cannot be construed as a forfeiture of that power."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.