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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O. 882

5 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

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Government, laid down the broad principle that the Colonies ought, so far as their means allow, to respectively provide for their own land defence.

5. In connexion with this subject, the Committee were required to report upon the general question of the disposal of Colonial military lands and build- ings no longer required for military purposes, as well as upon a particular transaction, the sale of the military hospital at Mauritius by the military ColonialCon- authorities. The Committee agreed to the attached report, which was approved by the War Office, the Committee, Treasury, and the Colonial Office; and paragraphs Report No. 5.

53 to 61 inclusive were subsequently sent in circular to the Colonies for the information and guidance of the Governors, unless they had any serious objection of principle to urge against the proposal. A copy of this circular despatch, 9 June 1890, is attached.

tributions

Circular, fith June 1800.

6. The Governors of Hong Kong and Ceylon raised objections to the principle of the proposal, and a long correspondence has ensued, resulting in a difference of opinion between the Colonial Office on the one hand and the War Office and Treasury on the other, as to the meaning and effect of the circular despatch. The two last-mentioned Departments contend that under the agreement between the three Departments, embodied in the circular despatch of 9 June 1890, the value of the surrendered land means in all cases the full market value. The Colonial Office admits that the full value of what the War Office surrenders should be assessed as accurately as circumstances permit, and the amounts provided or recorded by the Colony; but it maintains that when the military authorities have only a right of occupation or user, it is only this right that they surrender, and that the value of the fee simple which belongs to the Colony C.O.toW.O., cannot properly be included in the assessment. The 21st July three last letters of the correspondence are attached.* 1892, 18660. W.O1. to C.O., 12th Aug, 1892, 16189. Treasury to C.O., 18th Aug. 1892, 16492.

7. The question has become a pressing one in connexion with a certain piece of land at Hong Kong called the Murray Battery, and with what are known as the Military Reserves at Colombo, and a settlement of the dispute is on every ground desirable. The first step is to consult the Law Officers of the Crown as to the legal interpretation of the language dil, of the enclosure to the circular despatch.

• See

[L, III.

8. It should be stated that the question is confined to the site, for it is admitted that if a Colony enters into possession of buildings which have been built from Imperial funds their value at the time of transfer should be paid by the Colony, the amount being expended in other military buildings in the Colony, if these are required, or paid into the Imperial Exchequer if no further building is contemplated. If the buildings had been originally built by the Colony it could not in justice be asked to buy them back, though if other buildings are immediately required, then as the War Office loses the use of the old buildings, the Colony, if its means permit, might fairly be expected to contribute towards the con- truction of the new buildings a sum equivalent to the value of the old ones, as part of the arrangement between the Imperial and Colonial Governments for jointly providing the cost of such construction.

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HONG KONG.

9. The Island became a British possession about fifty years ago, when it was inhabited by only a few fishermen, and the lands which then passed into military occupation were of small intrinsic value. But the city of Victoria is now a wealthy commercial emporium, the population amounts to nearly 200,000 persons, and the land in military occupation, which is in the centre of the city, is estimated to be worth from one dollar to three dollars a square foot, and in the aggregate to be worth between three and four millions of dollars.

10. The land is mainly occupied by barracks and other military buildings, and is held by the War Office without any written title and without payment of any kind to the Colonial Government." In the hands of the Colonial Government it would produce

A very large annual revenue in rents and rates, and the Colony complains that so long as the land is in military occupation it loses this revenue, of which no account is taken in fixing its annual military con- tribution. The contribution, however, is far below the total cost of the garrison, so that the complaint, which in itself is fair enough, cannot be entertained.

11. The Colony has appealed to an old despatch from the Duke of Newcastle as furnishing a simpler and better mode of dealing with these lands. That despatch, No. 15 of the 27th of January 1864, stated: "that land not required for military pur.

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poses will revert to the Colony, the Colony, how.

ever, being bound to make reasonable compensation "for the improvements which have been effected

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upon the abandoned site, and also that if the "abandonment, imposes on the Imperial Government "the necessity of procuring a fresh site elsewhere, "that site must be acquired at the expense of the

Colony.'

12. The War Office, however, declines to recognize 13500/92, the principle laid down by the Duke of Newcastle, par. 9. and maintains that "the arrangement was very

"limited in its scope, and is inapplicable to present circumstances, and there appears to be no sufficient

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reason for setting aside in its favour the principles so recently laid down in the memoranduin accom- "panying the Colonial Office Oiroular of the 9th "June 1890." This reference to the inapplicability of the despatch to present circumstances is doubtless explained by the fact that the sites proposed to be abandoned as not required for military purposes are worth from one to three dollars per square foot, irre- spective of the buildings, and that the War Office, although it possesses only a partial interest in the land, desires that this value shall be paid by, or recorded against, the Colony in full, thus obtaining, in aid of War Office Votes, the entire benefit of the rise in value of the sites since they were first occupied.

13. The position in illustrated by the question of the Murray Battery. The Colonial Government desires to obtain possession of the site of this disused battery comprising about 43,832 square feet, for the purpose of erecting a new Supreme Court. The Treasury, in their letter of 17th August 1892, "hold that the Appen

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