Intro TAN
Enclosure
C.O.
21466
300
Rer 14 AUG 19
*Q
Honourable Colonial Secretary,
The letter of the Crown Agents of the 5th May last reveals a very serious state of affairs.
It is now nearly a year since I wrote and asked for 7 recruits and up to date I have only received 5 of them.
The European Force is at the present moment 15 short and there are 11 Europeans serving in the New Territory, so that I am 28 short of the strength as set down in the Estimates for the Colony minus the Extension.
Not only is it impossible to get trained recruits at home but recruiting in the Colony for the Water Police is at a standstill. I used to be able to get a good class of seamen and sometimes quarter masters off merchant vessels.
During the last 6 months I have got hardly any men that I could keep.
The last 5 men enlisted for the Water Police were dismissed for drunkenness before they had been 3 months in the Force.
The result is that I have not enough European Water Police to man the launches. The pinnace in the Mirs Bay, for instance, is short of a crew and can do very little Police Work and the one European available for that locality spends nearly all his time running backwards and forwards to Shatin with letters, food, and passengers.
Where European Police are to come from to take charge of the additional Stations to be built next year, it is impossible to say.
The difficulty in obtaining recruits is due to 4 causes:
(1) The small difference in the sterling value of the pay compared with the pay a Policeman can earn at home. The difference