No.1454/1904.
sir,
56
Government House,
Hongkong, 11th July, 1914.
Referring to the conversation which we had with the Commodore on the 9th instant concerning a proposal that an area of War Department land at North Point should be transferred to the Admiralty for the purposes of an oil depot, I have the honour to inform you that I have no objection to the proposal provided it is carried out through the Colonial Goverment at a valuation to be agreed upon between the Colonial Government and the War Department, and that the Colonial Government is credited with the value of the land in the Military Lands Account. Such an arrangement will be in accordance with instructions received from the Secretary of State for the
Colonies in 1903.
2. I understood, however, at the meeting on the 9th instant that it is proposed by the Admiralty to provide access to the sea from the land they wish to acquire by means of a
considerable pier.
Such an arrangement could not be entertained by the Colonial Government for the reason that it has a scheme of reclamation along the foreshore as far as Quarry Bay; and it is therefore suggested that the better arrangement would be for the War Department to relinquish the War Department land in question to the Colonial Government for its scheme of roed improvement which formed the subject of correspondence in 1910, and for the Admiralty to purchase from the Colonial Government such area of seabed as they may wish to acquire for reclamation, to a line to be agreed upon, for the storage of oil.
His Excellency
The General Officer Commanding the Troops,
South China.
I have, etc.
$d.
F. H. MAY
Governor, &c.