Sir,
((COPY.)
HONG-KONG. 3rd January 1902.
4367
**Memorandum**
It is with some diffidence we broach to you a subject of great personal interest to ourselves and some others on the eve of your departure for England on leave.
Ever since the Reclamation was made in the centre of Victoria, we have cherished the hope that the space in front of the City Hall & the Hong-Kong and Shanghai Bank would be preserved open as a gate of approach from Statue Wharf into the city and as an oasis of verdure and lung in the midst of brick and mortar. The Hong-Kong and Shanghai Bank by laying out their ground as enclosed gardens, and the Government by declaring that a similar area of land on the other side shall be devoted to a like purpose, have gone far to realise this aspiration.
It remains for the citizens to beautify and adorn this space, and at the same time attest their loyalty to the monarchs and government under whom this Colony has attained its present proud position. Already, a statue of H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught, who laid the foundation stone of this Reclamation, has been placed in position on the Government strip, and though at present concealed from view, it will, we are pleased to think, help to throw into relief the western facade of the Land Courts now about to be erected.
The Jubilee Statue of the late Queen Victoria fittingly occupies a site in the centre of the square, and we now beg to intimate that, subject to the consent of those august personages, we propose to present to the Colony a statue of His Majesty King Edward VII to adorn the north-eastern space, and one of the Prince of Wales, which we suggest should be placed...
His Excellency, Sir Henry A. Blake, G.C.M.G.