426
7
adding that he would dissect the date and the exact position of the stone to be recorded as evidence on the plans of War Department property, in the Royal Engineer's Office at Hing Kong.
These matters having been satisfactorily settled and this Department having placed the stone in situ, Colonel De Butts attended officially, accompanied by an Officer of this Department, proceeded to inspect the stone and approved of its site. Its position was then duly registered in the plans of Crown Lands in this Department, and I have no doubt that in compliance with his expressed intention, its position and the date of its inspection were also recorded by Colonel De Butts on the plan determining the proposed New Road and Concession, which plan is archived in the Royal Engineer office, and acquiesced in and signed by both Civil and Military authorities and approved by the Secretary of State for War.
8
In the face of the proceedings of 1869 and of the records extant, it is therefore futile to assert whether that no cession has taken place. Colonel De Butts was or was not competent to solemnize the transfer is another matter, and one which it is not my province to enter into here. But the fact remains none the less true, that by common accord the Colonial Government entered into possession in 1867, that it received the Land from Colonel De Butts officially, not as Commanding Royal Engineer but as Commandant, or Supreme Military Officer at this station, and that its rights have never been questioned until lately.
As custodian of the land ceded in the just explained manner, this Department has exercised ownership over the same since 1869, allowing the erection of huts and sheds and enjoying undisturbedly all the rights which it secured years ago. If it has been usual to notify the Commanding Royal Engineer upon the few occasions when Mr. Ford, the Superintendent of these Public Gardens, has required to enter the ground with gangs of Coolies for the purpose of removing earth for horticultural uses or trees for planting elsewhere, such custom has been a precautionary measure purely dictated by courtesy.