ed to all Garden Lot Holders within
Reserve.
The
Military
At the above meeting of the Council the General Officer Commanding,
General Cameron, presided as Officer Administering Government, and therefore,
the Military Authorities may be said to be bound by the resolution
of the Council, and it may be argued that that resolution superseded the arrangement of
June 1887.
The Government
On the other hand, for the reason possibly that the Officer Administering
it was also General Officer Commanding, the above resolution of the Executive Council was not formally communicated to the
Military Authorities until several months later when they indignantly repudiated it.
Continued disagreements then arose between the Colonial Government
and the Military Authorities over the much vexed question, and those disputes
may be said to have culminated when the late Governor, Sir G. H. Des Voeux,
sent home a despatch dated the 5th May 1891 and General Barker sent home a Counter-dispatch dated the 24th June, 1891.617
With reference to those two despatches the Secretary of State for the Colonies sent to His Excellency the Governor a despatch (COP. 270 of 1891) dated 6th November 1891, in which he states (adopting the view of the Colonial Defence Committee) "All requirements will be met if Land is reserved in the Peninsula for 'rifle ranges and Military exercises, and if the Defence works erected there are rendered self-defensible.' I understand that the General Officer Commanding has already been instructed to this effect."
The Secretary of State appears in fact by that despatch to intend to lay down the rule that no opposition be raised by
the Military Authorities to the erection of buildings within the Military