No.z.
(COPY
Head Quarters,
4332
28
R 10 FEL 06
Hongkong, 22nd. December, 1905.
Your Excellency,
In reference to your letter No. 8820/06/ 0.8.0., dated 19th. instant, I have the honour to inform you it
is regretted that I cannot agree to the proposal to abandon the
3rd. condition laid down in connection with the proposed 100 foot road at North Point. By the proposel now made the Military Authorities would gain nothing but a further paper credit in the
Military Lands Account.
3.
In my view this account was criginated
under the Lewis Convention with the intention of clearing up the existing questions, leaving a balance in favour of the Bar
Department to be afterwards worked off in land transferred from the Colonial Government to War Department. I do not think it
was intended that this account should be of a running nature
open for future transactions; and, in my opinion, such land
transfers to the Colonial Government from War Department should
be paid for in actual cash.
8.
The reclamation referred to is a Military
need, and, in my opinion, of more value to the War Department
than the extra width of the road proposed. It was put forward as
a fair land transfer in lieu of the land given for the road, and
i regret that no other arrangement will meet my views in the
matter.
I have etc...
(sd.) V. Batton,
Major-General,
Commanding the Troops, South China.
This excellency
The Governor of Hongkong.
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