in the Colony a number of men - senior members of Mercantile and Professional firms and Colonial Officials of some standing who being of a certain age and having many calls on their time are unwilling to go through the training required by the present regulations for efficiency in the existing volunteer force but would be anxious to render service in times of emergency and for this purpose would be willing to qualify in musketry. An offer to form themselves into a volunteer Corps to be entitled "The Hong Kong More Guard" was made by some of these gentlemen in 1900 and I annex a copy of the regulations by which they proposed that this corps should be governed. After consulting your predecessor Major-General Sir Alfred Gascoigne, K.C.M.G., and the Attorney-General Mr. (now Sir William) Goodman who considered that the proposed More Guard could not be brought under the provisions of "The Volunteer Ordinance, 1898" without straining those provisions and that it could not receive grants and allowances from the Colonial Revenue under that Ordinance, Sir Henry Blake caused the letter dated the 3rd August, 1900, of which a copy is also annexed, to be sent to the representative of the gentlemen that had offered their services. This letter practically promised certain assistance from the Government to a Rifle Club on condition that its members should form themselves into a Volunteer Infantry Company "in the event of serious apprehension of danger".
4. No result appears to have followed this letter at the time and it is now for consideration whether it is desirable to have the proposals it embodied again put before the gentlemen interested in the scheme. If this were done I should be inclined to suggest "The Hongkong Volunteer Reserve Association" as a suitable title which would become "The Hongkong Volunteer Reserve Company" on the enrolment of its members under the Ordinance. I would fix the ages of 25 and 50 as those within which members would be eligible to belong to this Association and