Minute by the General Officer Commanding
His Excellency
547
30 JUL 05
The governor of Hong Kong
etc,
etc,
etc,
.I understoed froma conversation with Your Excellency
that you had received a report from the Colonial Defence
Committee aswell as myself, and so i do not forward that
received by me •
As soon as I had read the reprot I communicated with
Major Pritchard, Gemmanding the Heng Kong Volunteers, and
after considerable discussion I arrived at the decision that
although we all agreed (Major Pritchard, the past and present
C.R.A. Colonel Johnson C.M.G. and Majer Bryan and myself)
that Garrison Artillery is the unit which requires strength-
ening in this rertress: yet we are all prepared to admit that
the arduous work connected with guns in the fixed armament,
would not be so popular and attractive to the class of men
of whom the Volunteers are composed, as the lighter work
connected with movable armament or machine guns. We all
recognized this when the change was recommended to Your
Excellency but we had in view efficiency rather than force
of numbers. The Volunteers accepted their share of the change
with great loyalty, and I am strångly averse to going back if
it can be avoided. At the same time the views of the Colonial
Defence Committee would not only have to be gravely consider-
ed but also we recognize that there is so much to our know-
ledge absolutely sound in those views that we have endeavour-
ed to suggest a course by which possibly the views expressed
by
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