550
that there
be no doubt as to the my determination of this Government to resist the present claim of the Military Authorities by all lawful and constitutional means.
#
appears
to me from a perusal of the papers upon the subject that the case of the Government with regard to that portion of the Military Reserve which is now under consideration is a strong one and that the Military Authorities cannot, I think, justly claim to have the land in question valued and the amount of the valuation credited to their account.
They claim that the War Department has a right of perpetual user over the land in question, in order to bring into effect the Secretary of State's despatch of the 30th December 1894. It is necessary, therefore, to review the facts connected with the creation of this reserve, which I will now proceed to do.
This reserve was created as recently as the year 1889, and, therefore, it does not present so many points of complication as certain other portions of the Kowloon Military Reserve, concerning which reference has been already made to the Secretary of State for the Colonies (Despatch No. 229 dated 29th September 1896).
The history of this reserve is, in fact, a very simple one.
In September 1888 the Military Authorities asked the Colonial Government to grant a site for a magazine to them near the Kowloon Dock. The Colonial Government consented to grant such a site, and on the 24th December 1888, Major Churchill, writing on behalf of the General Officer Commanding to the Colonial