CO885-(6-7) — Page 69

Printed for the use of the Colonial Office.

Miscellaneous. No. 89.

71

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

885

9

Military Lands in the Colonies.

Crown lands in the Colonies are the property of the Colonial Government, and if sold or leased the proceeds are paid to the Colonial Treasury for the uses of the civil Government. Some portions of such Crown lands are occupied by the military for purposes of defence, and while so occupied are not available for sale or lease by the Colonial Government. A question has arisen as to the mode in which these lands should be dealt with when no longer required for defence. The natural answer is that they should be restored to the Colonial Government for civil purposes, and in former years this was the course usually followed.

2. But since the coaling stations have been fortified the Colonies of Hong Hong, Straits Settlements, Ceylon, and Mauritius have been called upon to bear a larger share of the cost of their garrisons. The demand was resisted by them all on the ground that the coaling stations are not fortified for the sake of the Colonists, but for the protection of the trade of the United Kingdom with India and the far East, a contention that has a considerable element of truth.

3. The Straits, however, has been induced to pay for five years the sum of 100,0007.

a year, or about three-fourths of the cost of the garrison, and Hong Kong 40,0001, or one- seventh of the like cost. The Colonial revenue could not in either case bear a larger payment,

Ceylon undertakes the cost of the garrison at Colombo, the cost of the garrison at the naval station of Trincomalee being, for the present, at any rate, borne by the Imperial Exchequer.

Mauritius has been recently devastated by a hurricane, and the demand for this year has been reduced to 15,000%, but the question remains unsettled as to the claims for future years.

4. The Committee which considered the military contributions also went into the question of military lands, and agreed to a report, which was accepted by the three Departments, and embodied in a Memorandum which was sent in circular to the Colonies concerned. When it was sought to give effect to this Memorandum, a difference as to its interpretation arose between the Treasury and War Office on one side and the Colonial Office on the other, and as no agreement seemed possible, the Secretary of State for the Colonies determined, as the first step to a settlement, to obtain an authoritative opinion from the Law Officers as to its real meaning. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer con- siders that a reference to the Law Officers is unnecessary, and the War Office now formu- lates a question of principle independent of the terms of the Memorandum. The agree. ment may therefore be regarded as definitely abandoned by the three Departments.

5. The ground being thus cleared, it is proposed that the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretaries of State for War and the Colonies should discuss and come to a decision upon

the question, which, in a Memorandum of 21 January 1893, is stated by the War Office as follows:-

"Shall Her Majesty's Government require Colonies having Imperial garrisons so to adininister their military Crown lands as to enable them, out of their value, to provide as far as possible such other properties as may be required for defence without cast- ing extra expenditure upon Imperial funds?

6. The meaning is that Crown Lands occupied by the military without power of sale, when given up as being useless for defence purposes, (1) shall be sold by the Colonial Government, who shall either hand over the proceeds to the military for immediate

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