It will be recollected that it is only through the raising of a loan that this Colony could contribute to the Military Defences, in addition to the annual Military Contribution of twenty thousand pounds (£20,000). For, as was fully shown in my despatch No.4 of 1883, Her Majesty's Government have already sanctioned the appropriation of the existing balances and surplus revenue towards the execution of the new Water Works and of the Sanitary Works so strongly recommended by Mr. Chadwick as essential for the preservation of the health alike of the Civil and of the Military inhabitants of this city. It will be recollected, moreover, that Your Lordship has already sanctioned, in principle, the raising, on the exhaustion of our existing assets, of a moderate loan for the completion of the above-named urgently needed public works. Again, it will not be forgotten that the Census of 1881 shows that the British population of Hongkong little exceeds two