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158
HONGKONG : NAVAL AND MILITARY WORKS.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
[August 26, 1901.
will be for this purpose; we will hope so, | THE NEW TERRITORY REPORT.
any rate.
nt
+
conse-
(Daily Press, 24th August.) The unavoidably belated Report of the Hon. J. H. STEWART LOCKHART, C.M.G., Colonial Secretary, printed in the Govern ment Gazette. of the 17th inst., and in part reproduced in these columns on Tues- day, is a distinctly instructive compilation. The document, under its headings of Land, Titles, Land Court, Survey, Botanical and Afforestation Department, Public Works, Education, Medical Department, Harbour Office, Police, Crime, Legislation, Revenue and Expenditure, and Staff, is worthy of minute and detailed attention. Taken in conjunction with the thirteen accompany- ing appendices, from which through con. siderations of space we were unable to quote on Tuesday, it furnishes us with a complete history of what has been, and is being, done in our Extension across the harbour. The highly important Memorandum by Mr. H. H. J. GOMPERTZ, Member of the Land Court, upon Land Tenure and Titles in the New Territory, gives us a vivid picture of a few out of the many tight knots and hope- less tangles which the Land Court, in the course of its arduous duties, will have to loosen and unravel. The numerous cou- ficting claims to practically every superficial foot of land, particularly those nearest the shore, in the narrow ribbon of leased territory facing Hongkong, and extending from Lyeemun in the East, right out
It is satisfactory to find that the Royal (Daily Press, 21st August.)
Naval Dockyard is to be formed on so large The Naval and Military Works Bills have, and comprehensive a scale as stated by Mr. REUTER tells us, been read a third time PRETYMAN. It is, of course, much to be in the House of Commons, which means regrette i, from the civilian point of view that practically they have been passed. at least, that the Admiralty found it in The Bills provide for the expenditure of advisable or impracticable-we have yet to twelve million pounds sterling, six million learn which-to remove the establishment of which are for naval and six for military bodily across to the other side of the works. These include a breakwater for harbour. It is true that Mr. CHATER'S Malta, increased coaling facilities for the scheme was a little late; some portion of Fleet, and the erection and re-construction the reclamation in front of the Naval Yard of barracks. The Royal Naval Dockyard had been accomplished and the alterations to at Hongkong, for the enlargement of which many of the buildings in it had been carried part of the money will also be used, is, we out, but compensation might and could are told by Captain PRETI MAN, Civil Lord easily have been made for the outlay thus of the Admiralty, to be about thirty-four incurred by the Government and ratepayers and-a-half acres in extent, leaving space of Hongkong out of the sale of the ground for the erection of an additional large dock, that could have been made. On their side, if required, and for providing storage ac the Admiralty would have gained much in commodation for one hundred thousand convenience and in elbow.room. They have tons of coal. It will thus be apparent that in any case to maintaiu an establishment on not only are very large additions to be made the Kowloon side, and, large as is the area to the Royal Naval Dockyard, which will is now proposed to reclaim between the Naval create Hongkong into a great Naval Arsenal, Yard and the man-of-war anchorage, it is but that extensive additions are contem- small compared with what it was proposed plated to the barrack accommodation for to give them as an equivalent at Kowloon. the garrison, at present very limited. It is However, we discussed this question from true that the purchase of the Mount Austin the naval point of view last tnonth. Barracks three years ago and the erection The decision has been made, and the of several blocks on Gun Club Hill, Kow. Colony will have to suffer the loon, relieved the pressure for a time, but quences. These are varied and more than since the reinforcement of the Garrison by sufficiently trying. In the first place the
to Laichikok, behind Stonecutter's, in the three regiments of Indian Infantry there prospect opened up, by the exchange, of a has been much crowding and discomfort. broad continuous Praya, will now have to West, are specimens of the ravenous land- Some of the troops have been housed in be definitely abandoned, and we must resign hunger which has suddenly seized our matsheds, some under canvas, and others in ourselves, as best we may, to the thought newest subjects. Of the nine lesser islands hired buildings or in temporary quarters. of the sea-face of this great port being lying between Hongkong and Lántao, Thus the barracks of the Hongkong Regi-permanently cut in twain in the very centre 880 claims have been lodged in respect of ment have, in the absence in North China of the city, thereby impeding development five in his Report Mr. Lockhart says of the bulk of the battalion, been placed at and greatly hampering the traffic. The four, an obvious slip, as reference to para. the disposal of one of the Indian regiments, residents on the upper levels in the middle of graph 13 of Appendix la will show : while and detachments from another have been Victoria will also have to get accustomed to to the other four-Mr. LOCKHART says lodged in the Sanatorium at Magazine Gap. the manifold disturbing noises necessarily five-no claims have been sent in, and they, But on the return of the Hongkong Regi- arising fron a busy dockyard, which they by virtue of Section 15 of the Ordinance, ment the pressure will again become acute. will not find conducive to slumber in the revert to the Crown. The preposterous, Presumably two, if not all three, of the early hours of the morning, when the most unsupported claim of a branch of the TANG regiments will remain or be replaced. The refreshing sleep is usually obtained in the family of Kam T'in in San On, to the whole 3rd Madras Light Infantry are, it is true, summer. The citizens who have their of Ts'ing I Island, currently named Chung ordered back to India in three weeks' places of business in the quarter lying Hue, is a striking sample the absolutely time, but they are, we hear, to be replaced between the Naval Yard and Blake Pier baseless claims to land wnership on a by one of the regiments now at Shanghai, will find the smoke from the Dockyard large scale which have given the Land Court The Garrison of Hongkong, which had, up chimneys no slight nuisance, and the offices endless trouble and worry. Happily, and to the Boxer outbreak in North China and adjoining will have to endure all the din apparently owing to internal clan squabbles the attempted massacre of the Foreign that inevitably issues from such au establishı-
as to distribution of the spoil, a deed dated Ministers, been more or less nominal, or at ment. Nor is this all. The large reclama-1788 shows conclusively that the living des- least only maintained at the point sufficient tion in progress will, notwithstanding the cendants of TANG KU-NAM only own 86.2 to man meagrely the principal fortifica-
mow of land; and assuming, as is done in assurances of Naval experts, be certain to tions, will in future have to be kept on
cause considerable silting up along the Mr. LOCKHART's Report to the Colonial something like a level with ordinary require foreshore from Messrs. BUTTERFIELD & Office, dated Oct. 8th, 1898, that 6:61 mow ments, if not on a basis of affording assist- EwIRE's offices to Pottinger Street wharf, ance to Shanghai or Peking. The great and much dredging will no doubt have to distance from any base of supplies and the be done to counternet this. possibilities of local difficulties arising out evils must ensuc, either because te Lords of European complications, have at last, by of the Admiralty consider the Kowloon dint of actual events, convincel the British site too exposed to an enemy's fire, or else War Office of the importance of regarding because they do not like to defer the work Hongkong not merely as a coaling station and start afresh. If the latter is the reason, but as a place of arms from which, if it may be remarked that they have never necessary, assistance cau be afforded to shown any tendency to place value on time British trade or those engaged in it in the before; it is to be regretted that they should ports of China. The Colony will, therefore, have manifested to a sudden appreciation of in future be garrisoned more in accordance it at a moment when a little more delay meant with its strategic importance, though pro- so much for Hongkong. If the former reason bably there may be differences of opinion is that which actuates them, then, as we between the War Office and the public as have said before, we can but bow to naval to the number of troops that will be re-demands, though it be with a heavy heart. quired to make the garrison effective. Still it is much to have the position of the Colony recognised; the next step gained may be The following telegram appears in the Jiji its efficient fortification. At present the entrances to the harbour of Victoria are sufficiently protected, but the southern coast of the island of Hongkong is still totally unprotected. Possibly the next vote made
All these
Peking. August 8th.-Russia intends to occupy Manchuria permanently, and will build Hend- quarter Offices and barracks for two Divisions, one at some place near the coast of the Yellow Sea and another somewhere between Harbin and Moukden. The surveys have been made.
1 English acre, their total owning is about 5.5 English acres. When it is stated that the whole island of Ting I contains con- siderably over a thousand acres of well. timbered and well-watered land, hill and dale, is easily accessible at all seasons, and contains sites suitable for plague and other burial places without interfering with presont residential arens—the island is in-
habited by some four hundred Hakkas— the impudent pretensions of the Taxos are wholesomely apparent. Mr. GoMPERTZ is too considerate in proposing that, as an act of grace, an extra acre, or thereabouts, should be granted them for the purpose of erecting a brick or lime-kiln in the north- eust part of the island where, some ten years ago, n kilu was worked. In the utter absence of documentary evidence, the Taxos, presumptively, were trespamers on that bit of land; and bearing in mind the dishonest nature of their recent claim, they should be given strict justice, and nothing more¬title to collect annually the commuted value of 49 pícula of rice, minus the amount paši by
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