}
13191
88
16014
Brands
SIR,
184
Treasury Beaut Jes of 1589
19861
1. THE Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury have discussed it SEP 39, a letter which is now before the Secretary of State the question of the military contribution to be asked from the Straits Settlements. In the present letter they will express their opinion upon the contribution which the Colony of Hong Kong may fairly be expected to make towards the cost of its defence.
Defence of Colonies, Naval and Military.
2. The defence of the Colonies is entrusted to two forces-the Navy and the Army. Hitherto the British taxpayer has defrayed unaided the whole cost of the Navy. The altered conditions naval warfare, however, have added and are adding so much to the cost of naval defence that the question must arise hereafter whether the prosperous settlements which are members of the Empire should not contribute in reasonable proportion to the cost of a service so essential to their socurity. The Australian Colonies have indeed anticipated the question, so far as they are concerned, by offering spontaneously a liberal subsidy towards the provision and maintenance of the ships required in their waters. The Imperial Government undertakes alone the cost of the service in other quarters, and ny Lords mention the subject here, not because they are about to ask a naval contribution from Hong Kong, but because the Colonial Office and Colonial Governments are apt to forget or overlook the heavy charge which the Imperial Government incurs in providing for the naval defence of the Colonies, and to take it for granted that the Colonies can only be asked for a proportion, and as the Colonial Office contends, a very moderate proportion of the cost of military defence.
The Garrison of Hong Kong.
3. Hong Kong became a Colony in 1844. During the first 14 years of its existence as a Colony it cost the Imperial Exchequer 273,0007. for its civil establishment, exclusive of any sum spent during that period on naval and military protection. It became self-supporting so far as the Civil Government was concerned in 1859. About this time the Imperial Government found it necessary to increase largely the Imperial Military and Naval Estimates. In 1861 attention was directed to the subject of Colonial Military Expenditure, and a Committee of the House of Commons was directed to inquire whether the most wealthy and important Colonies might not, with due regard to justice and to their own interests, defray a larger proportion of the cost of their military defence than up to that time had been laid to their charge.
The Committee advised that those Colonies which more particularly imposed a burthen upon the Imperial Exchequer for military defence should be required to increase considerably their contributions towards that object, if the state of their revenues would justify the additional charge.
4. The revenue of Hong Kong averaged for the years 1860, 1861, 1862 rather more than 117,000., and the Duke of Newcastle, in disregard of the urgent remonstrances and despairing predictions of the then Governor (Sir Hercules Robinson), of the Colonial authorities, and of the community itself, required military contribution of 20,0007., equivalent to rather more than one-sixth of the entire revenue, the garrison being then estimated at 1,000 men of all ranks, costing 100,000l. a year.
a
The Duke of Newcastle intended that the contribution should remain in force for Despatch of five years, and should then be subject to such revision as the altered circum- 2nd April
1863, para- stances of the Colony might require. It is clear that his Grace contemplated au
graph 14.
NOTE.It should be noted that reference is made in the letter to two separate Committees which have reported on subjects connected with the Military Defence of the Colonies. Committee on Colonial Military Defence. 2, A Committee on Colonial Military Contributions, over which Sir A. Haliburton presided.
1. A
The Under Secretary of
A 59784, 50 & 2 & 2.--9/89. G. 51. Wt. 9085. E. & S.
Colonial Office
A
State
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