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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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expenditure in other buildings, or, if no expenditure is immediately required, shall under- take to pay over the amount when demanded for construction of military works, or (2) if retained by the Colony shall be valued, and the estimated value of the fee simple either paid over at once, or recorded for future payment as in the case of the proceeds of sale.

It is presumed (though not explicitly stated) that the proposal includes a correspond- ing obligation by Her Majesty's Government to deal in the same way with the proceeds of any land which may be vested in the Secretary of State for War under a title which

allows him to sell.

7. Such a discussion will obviously be advantageous, and as it is admitted that any decision arrived at will require the assent of the Colonial Government before it can be carried out, there can be no objection to the course proposed, for the decision, whatever it may be, will be laid fairly before the Colonial Legislature. The decision, however, will require much consideration.

8. The proposal is based upon an alleged duty by the Colonies to provide their own land defence, and the following sentence from a Despatch from Lord Knutsford is quoted as the authority which established this duty :-

"In dealing with the great question of the defence of the Empire, it is difficult to lay down any other broad principle for dividing the cost of Colonial defence except that of the mother country undertaking the sea defence of the Colonies by means of her Navy, and the Colonies, as far as their means allow, respectively providing for their own land defence."

It must, however, be borne in mind that this sentence was written argumentatively as a ground for demanding an increased contribution, that no Colony has acknowledged this *tatement as a duty which it is bound to carry out, nor has any Colony been definitely isked to do so. And further, as will be seen from par. 2, the Colonial view "of their own and defence" is very different to that entertained by the War Office.

9. The Colonies having Imperial garrisons are (omitting the fortresses of Malta and Gibraltar) Canada (at Halifax), Jamaica, St. Lucia, Sierra Leone, St. Helena, the Cape, Mauritius, Ceylon, Straits Settlements, and Hong Kong. Public expenditure in all of them is regulated by vote of the Colonial Legislature; in four of them,-Canada, Cape, Jamaica, and Mauritius,-the voting power is in the hands of the elected members; in the others the official members, who must obey the directions of the Secretary of State, form the majority. But it is certain that even in these any demands in respect of military lands which may appear to the Colonists to be untair or excessive will be strenuously resisted.

10. Should that resistance take the shape of a general resignation of the unofficial members of the Legislative Council, and a refusal by all other Colonists to accept seats in their place, legislation and the voting of funds will become impossible, as has happened in Jamaica and British Honduras, in consequence of a demand for certain unpopular votes. In both cases the deadlock was only solved by giving to the unofficial members the control of the financial measures. Should a similar state of things occur at, say, Hong Kong, the Imperial Government may find itself unable to require the Colony to provide funds for erecting military buildings of any kind, or even for the contribution to the garrison.

11. Crown Colony government is no longer what it was. At present it requires very careful handling, and it may easily break down as it has done at Jamaica, Mauritius, and British Honduras. So that the Mauritius transactions of 1835-9, during the days of military governors referred to in the last paragraph of the War Office Memorandum of 21 January 1893, are no guide at the present time the transactions of 1860 appear to have been a bargain with the Colonial Government, and the Military Hospital at Mauritius was an exceptional. case, and is not quite accurately stated in the second paragraph of that Memorandum.

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12. The Mauritius Hospital was sold by the military without legal title, and the Colony claimed the money. Lord Knutsford, who was then Secretary of State, urged that under all the circumstances of the case it would be equitable not to press the cluiin; the Legis- lature consented, but it might have refused, and the Secretary of State did not, and could not, require the Colony to "contribute the full fee simple value realised by the sale."

13. Hong Kong is mentioned above because the question is there coming to a point, dditional barracks being immediately required. The lands in military occupation are of

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great extent, and were of small intrinsic value when first occupied, but are now valued at several hundred thousands of pounds sterling for the sites alone, without the buildings. The Colony claims for itself the value of this increment, and will not readily consent to pledge itself to surrender it for the purpose of providing military buildings which have hitherto been always erected at Imperial cost. The Colony is already in a state of irrita tion owing to the two following cases which have occurred and have a bearing upon the principle of the present proposal.

14. When a battery, as part of the new defences, was required at a place called Belcher's Point, the Colonial Government bought out the private occupiers of the site (who held leases for 999 years), and let the military into possession of the land, which has proved to be somewhat larger than is required for the purposes of the fort. The Colony wishes to take back a small strip of this surplus land in order to provide access to an adjoining lot, which has been given to one of the former occupiere as part of the arrangement with him. The War Office refuses to give up this strip, and requires, that it shall be dealt with in the general settlement of the question; directing that the value shall at once be ascertained. The intention is, doubtless, to demand payment by the Colony of the full value of the land.

15. The other case is that of Murray Battery, an obsolete work now in the middle of the town, which has had no military value, or been put to any military use, for more than a quarter of a century. The military have, however, retained possession, and now that the Colony wishes to build a Supreme Court upon the site, the War Office refuses to give up possession until the Colony pays in cash the fee simple value, estimated at about 7,000/ The site was of very small value when handed over to the military in the early days of the Colony.

16. In Ceylon, also, the military claims to land are a burning question. The town of Colombo occupies the site of the old Dutch fort, and on that plea the military claim about half the town, including land which has no military value and other land reclaimed from the harbour at the cost of the Colony. Colombo is now an open town, the walls and obsolete defence works having been demolished some years ago by the Colonial Govern- ment at its own expense.

17. It will be seen that the question is surrounded with difficulties; the mere assertion of the abstract principle involved in the War Office proposition is not likely to advance matters, and it is possible that the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the two Secretaries of State with these facts before them, may think it preferable to approach the Colonial Governments with a frank statement of the expenditure which will be required in each Colony, and appeal to the patriotism and liberality of the Colonial Legislature to bear its share, urging, at the same time, as a means of raising the money, the sale of Crown lands which are held by the military and are not required for defence. Such a course is more likely to be successful than an attempt to compel them to accept an abstract proposition involving an indefinite liability, the measure of which will be fixed y the military authorities. At the same time, it must not be forgotten that the Colonies are the freeholders of the lands in question, and are ready enough to charge the War Office with bad faith when it holds on to lands given for the purpose of defence after circumstances have changed and the purpose has ceased, while, on the other hand, fresh lands are often demanded from Colonies as the sites of new works, demands which, it is only fair to say, are always readily met by the Colonies.

Colonial Office,

March 1893.

J. B.

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