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Gauriar, and requesting me to furnish a report on the questions referred to the Generals
I would observe in the first place that Ford Warlington simply informs General Gory that certain "arrangements have been decided on," and then proceeds to detail those arrangements, which I presume are intended to take place irrespective of any opinion which the local Authorities may offer.
3. These arrangements include the raising of fresh Battalions to be added to the Ceylon Rifles, and on that point the opinion of General Guy is requested, so far as regards the best means of effecting that, and the composition best suited to these Battalions.
This is apparently a strictly Military question, and no doubt General Guy will be able to offer useful advice. I should however not fulfil my duty if I hesitated to avow my opinion that the substitution proposed of the additional Companies of Ceylon Rifle Corps for the portion of the 20th European Regiment about to be withdrawn, affords very inadequate protection to the great interests at stake and the vast amount of Stores kept in reserve at Songtong for Imperial purposes.
I cannot help thinking that a good European Regiment equivalent in the moral support which it gives to Government on critical occasions, such as a local insurrection, to two entire Battalions of the Ceylon Rifles, because the Chinese despise the latter as being their inferiors, intellectually and physically.