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The estimate of cost is necessarily a very rough one, but should your Excellency think the scheme Appendix No. 4. worthy of further consideration, I recommend that in the first place the Committee on Defences be requested to give their opinion as to the advisability of concentrating the naval and military establish- Ilong Kong. ments on the site I have named.
If they approve of the concentration, the Senior Naval Officer and the Officer Commanding the troops might be requested to send in to you a Report on the subject, which could be forwarded with your remarks to the Secretary of State,
I have forwarded a copy of this letter to the Inspector-General of Fortifications.
I have, &c.
(Signed)
W. CROSSMAN, Colonel, R.E.
No. 99.
Sir,
Colonial Office to Royal Commission on the Defence of British Possessions and Commerce Abroad.
Downing Street, February 16, 1882. I AM directed by the Earl of Kimberley to transmit to you, to be laid before the Royal Com- mission on the Defence of British Possessions and Commerce Abroad, the accompanying copy of a letter from the War Office, inclosing Reports, &c., from Colonel Crossman, R.E., C.M.G., on the Defences of Hong Kong and Singapore.
I am to request that, when the papers have been printed, the Royal Commissioners will be good enough to return the original documents to this Office, and to supply this Department with twelve printed copies of the Reports.
Inclosure 1 in No. 99.
War Office to Colonial Office.
I am, &c.
(Signed)
R. H. MEADE.
Sir,
War Office, February 14, 1882.
I AM directed by the Secretary of State for War to forward the accompanying Reports and inclosures from Colonel Crossman, C.M.G., R.E., on the defences of Hong Kong and Singapore, and to request that the Earl of Kimberley will be good enough to transmit the Reports and accompanying documents for the information of the Royal Commission on the Defence of British Possessions and Commerce Abroad.
As these Reports, &c., are in original, Mr. Secretary Childers desires me to request that they may be returned to this Office when done with.
In the case of Hong Kong I am to observe, with reference to Colonel Crossmann's remark respecting the plans, that, as they have become somewhat damaged in transit, the information furnished on them has been transferred to those now transmitted with the Report.
I have, &c.
(Signed)
RALPH THOMPSON.
Inclosure 2 in No. 99.
Colonel Crossman, R.E., to the Inspector-General of Fortifications, on the Defences of
(Secret and Confidential.) Sir,
Hong Kong.
Hong Kong, October 24, 1881.
I HAVE the honour to state that I arrived here on the 3rd September, but my Report has been delayed owing to my having to wait for the completion of the Report of the Committee on Defences, which was appointed by his Excellency the Governor after my arrival.
I have carefully inspected the Island of Hong Kong and the Peninsula of Kowloon, on some occasions in company with the Committee.
I have conferred with the Committee several times, and I may state that in
all general points I fully concur with the views expressed by them.
The Officer administering the Government has sent me their Report, with a request that I will forward to him any remarks I may wish to make on the subject.
Inclosed is a copy of the Report,* and of the letter I addressed in reply. The paragraphs of the present letter which I extracted are marked by a red line in the margin; they do not touch upon any questions of detail connected with subjects exclusively military, so I venture now to make the following observa- tions on the general defence of the Colony, although in so doing I may, in many cases, have to go over the same ground as the Committee has done.
Hong Kong being the only naval station on the western side of the North Pacific, and the great emporium of English commerce in China,f there can be
*Inclosure 3.
See Table No. 6.
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