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His Excellency.I may state, the hon member gave me private notice that he intended to move to-day the resolutions of which he holds a copy in his hand. I informed him that in strictness notice of such resolution should have been given so as to appear in the orders of the day, but I think it very desirable the vote, which has already been passed, and the different questions connected with that vote, should be thoroughly discussed and decided to-day, and, therefore, I informed the hon. member that, so far as I am concerned, I should have no objection to the standing orders being suspended, in order that the resolution might be proposed and discussed without the necessity of postponement. Therefore, all that is required now is, that some member should propose that the standing orders be suspended and then we can proceed to the discussion.
On the motion of the Acting Colonial Secretary the standing orders auspended,
were
Hon. P. Ryrie asked whether his Excellency would like the resolutions to be proposed en bloc or one by one,
His Excellency--That is as best suits your argument. I think there can be no objection to their being proposed en bloc.
Hon. P. Ryrie.--The first resolution is :---
"That this Council, while recognising the justice and fairness of the demand made upon the Colony for an addition to the Military Contribution, desires to place upon record the fact, that the vote authorising the ad- ditional payment has been passed by the unanimous voice of the members, official and unofficial, in the belief that the proposed increase in the strength of the troops stationed here is essentially necessary for the safety of the Colony, and with the full assurance that the force mentioned in the appendix to the Secretary of State's despatch of the 20th January, 1890, 8,018 men of all ranks, of whom 2,525 are to be Europeans, will be present in the Colony within the year, and will be retained here."
Of course, with regard to to this resolution, the unofficial members feel pretty strongly, that if they are asked to pay the money the garrison promised should be forthcoming as soon as it ran possibly be arranged by the military authorities. The second resolution is :---
"It is the unanimous hope of this Council that, as the additional moneys voted have been asked for and granted as the Colony's contribution to an increased garrison, and principally, if not entirely, because of the proposed increase, no demand will be inade by the Imperial Government for the payment therefor until the strength of the garrision has actually been raised to the full extent of the figures in the Secretary of State's despatch, and that, if any additional payment is demanded before that point has been reached, it should be proportional to such increase as shall from time to time be made in the force stationed in the Colony.”
This second resolution appears to me nearly to follow the first-it is simply ex- pressing further that, until the troops are forthcoming, we should not be called upon for the money. The third resolution is :-
That, in the opinion of this Council, the attention of the Secretary of State should be directed to the fact, to which no reference is made in Lord Knutsford's despatch of the 20th January, 1890, that the military depart- ments are in the occupation of rather more than 337 acres of land in this Colony, of which 84 acres are in the city of Victoria; that these 84 acres are situate in the very centre of the town, and are, at the very lowest, of the value of 3,000,000 of dollars, representing a revenue in the shape of Crown rents and taxes of 50,000 dollars a-year lost to the Colony, and that this being so, it is earnestly hoped that no further demand will be made on the Colony in respect of barrack expenditure, referred to in paragraphs. 20, 21 and 22 of the despatch above mentioned, at all events, unless the land in the centre of the town be given up by the military authorities, as has been suggested, in exchange for other sites nearer the batteries."
This I would call your Excellency's special attention to as a very important resolution. It shows very clearly that although evidently there is a wish on the part of the Imperial Government to saddle the Colony with a portion of the cost of barracks, there is a set-off against it in the statement which this resolution contains. There is no doubt that the removal of the troops from the centre of the town would be a very great gain to the Colony, and it also would be a gain to the troops themselves if they could be more readily transferred to batteries to defend the Ly-ee-Moon. Then again we have Kowloon, where the military departments have a very large tract of land which may in
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time, if the predictions that we hear from time to time are realised, become even more valuable than the land they hold in the centre of the town, on account of its size, because they have a much larger proportion of Kowloon, and therefore I think this third resolution the most important of those which we have your Excellency's sanction to put to the Council to-day. The fourth resolution is :-
"That his Excellency the Officer Administering the Government be requested to forward a copy of these resolutions to the Secretary of State with a view to their being laid before Her Majesty's Government."
I believe my hon. friend opposite (Hon. A. P. MacEwen) will second these resolutions.
Hon. A. P. MacEwen-Sir, when this important matter of the increase to the Military Contribution of the Colony was brought to the front, and after careful perusal of the Secretary of State's despatch, I came to the conclusion that the proper course for the unofficial members would be to vote the amount as soon as the promises contained in that despatch were fulfilled, namely, when the garrison was increased to 3,018 men: but after consideration and many consultations with my colleagues, it was thought. by the majority at any rate, that the better course would be to vote the amount first and then by the series of resolutions now before the Council it was hoped to obtain a unanimous vote from the official and unofficial members, and that by agreement we should be more likely to gain our ends. In order to avoid any split in the camp I agreed, and I hope that by taking this course we may be successful. The resolutions explain so clearly what the views of the unofficial members are, that they will require but few words from me this evening. I shall endeavour to show that in all fairness this Colony should not be called upon to pay for the increased garrison until the additional troops are here. Now, sir, I have heard it rumoured that it is not the intention of the Imperial authorities to send us European troops as is stated in the despatch. 1 may I feel say at once I scout the idea that the Colonial Office has any desire to deceive us. certain that Lord Knutsford would never have placed his signature to a despatch con- taining statements that he was not willing to carry out. I am willing to admit that if in the year 1865, 20,000/ was considered a fair contribution for this Colony to pay for military defences, in the year 1890, 25 years later, double the amount is not too much to ask, considering the enormous strides and the immeuse progress the Colony has made during that time. But, as stated in the third resolution, it must be borne in mind that a very large tract of valuable ground is in the occupation of the military authorities, and in addition to that, Officers of the garrison occupy many of our houses, for which they pay no taxes whatever, and with an increased garrison we shall have many more Officers here, who, it is certain, will require house accommodation, so that this really means a very considerable lessening of the revenue, and I think it is a point that ought to be taken into consideration. Another matter, which is not alluded to in the resolutions, and which I think ought fairly to be considered, is this. The Colony has expended a sum of 120,0007. to pay for forts, and we have had to borrow money to assist in the payment. I do not mean to say that the whole of the loan contracted was of paying for these forts, but at any rate some proportion was, and it is purpose only fair to take into consideration the interest and sinking fund that this Colony pays annually on that amount, which I presume will come to 10,000% or 12,0001, should (sic.) be added to the 40,000. that the Secretary of State now asks us to pay. In clanses 16, 17, and 18 of the Secretary of State's despatch he bases bis argument as follows. He takes our revenue at 1,500,000 dollars, and our population at 215,000, and he asks for 10,000%. for the Military Contribution. Well, by an ordinary rule of three sum he arrives at the conclusion that we pay per head 3s. 94. as against Ss. 9d. per head paid at home. Now, I shall be prepared to prove later on that the population is not and never has been anything like 215,000, but for the sake of argument I will take him on his own figures. It must be borne in mind that a very large proportion of the popula- tion is of the poorest description of the labouring class. I suppose the ordinary wages a coolie earns here would be equivalent to something like 44d, a-day. Now, of this population-I have it on very good authority, and I can appeal, and it is some satisfac- tion I can do so, to the experience of the hon. member ou my left (the Colonial Treasurer) of this population-and I may say I have not the least wish to exaggerate my figures-I think it may be safely taken that at least 125,000 are of the class that contribute little or nothing towards the revenue of this Colony. If you take away from your 215,000 125,000 that leaves 95,000, and then if you take it out in the same way as the Secretary of State, you will find that we are paying 9 as against 8s. 9d. paid at home, according to the despatch. But I maintain that the population of this Colony has not nor ever has been over 195,000, which are the figures given in your own Government Gazette of the 28th February, 1890. Well, now, if you take 125,000 of the poorer population from the total population of 195,000, and then apply the same rule, it works out that we pay 11s. 4d.; which is considerably more than what is paid by the taxpayers at home. I must say this is a point which I think, in all fairness, deserves your Excellency's consideration. It must not be thought for a moment that this extra 20,000. that the Colony is called upon to pay will not prove a very heavy burden. It is the case in private life that when one is supposed to be possessed of more means than he actually has, continual calls are made on his purse, and if he does not pay up and
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