3
Admy point out that
even so the contri-
butions agreed on is
ruch less than H.K.
ought to pay on this
basis.
to revert to the former position i.e. that
if the launches are to be continued as an anti-
piracy measure the Hong Kong Government should bear the general running expenses. In point
of fact the provisional arrangement made
between the Naval C. in C. and the Colonial
Government is very much more favourable than that
described above, seeing that the expenses are
to be apportioned on the rough basis that the personnel should be entirely a naval charge and
under navy control and that the expense of hire
and general running expenses should be shared
equally by Admiralty and Colonial Government.
On this basis Hong Kong will have to pay
£3,600 per annum plus insurance of value.
Had the usefulness of these launches been
unquestioned we would consider ourselves lucky
to have secured this arrangement. As it is how-
ever we have the prospect of H.K. in period
of financial difficulty incurring this additional
commitment on an object which the late Governor
condemned as useless.
Sir E. Stubbs' views are set out in the
conference minutes enclosed in 1003/26.
Briefly
the line he took was that launches were ineffective
because piracies usually took place on the sea
and launches were only for river work; that
piracies were usually from within and not from
witout and that launches could not therefore be
expected to cope with them; that the real reason
why they were demanded by shipping to convey
vessels up and down the river was to save them
not from piracy but from the exactions levied
by