The Strait Settlements, where there are fewer troops than here, pay a contribution of Dollars 410,000 (or £45,000), a year, and provide Barracks besides. Also of the Straits
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the land revenue of Settlements is 30 percent less than the military expenditure; the land revenue of Hong Kong is 30 per cent more. So that, strictly speaking, there is no levy whatever on the inhabitants of the latter Colony for their own Defence.
In addition to this, more than Dollar 1,000,000 (or £187,500), has been received from time to time as premia on land Sales in Hong Kong. And the Colony had a balance of about that amount to the good in the beginning of 1865.
This land was ceded to Great Britain after the War; and no more legitimate use could be made of it, or revenue derived from it, in the prevention of disaster in future War, by devoting it to the construction of permanent fortifications.
The state of the defences of the Colony is at present so unsatisfactory that I would strongly urge that a proposal be set on foot, for the Colony to procure, by means of a guaranteed loan, a sum to be expended on permanent fortifications.
Having adduced some arguments why this may be reasonably...