CO129-308 - Public Offices - 1901 — Page 580

2).

AR OFFICE 574 Wo 76355

Colony of Hong Kong should provide sites for military purposes free of charge to the Imperial Government. The concurrence of the Secretary of State for the Colonies in this report was contained in Sir R. Meade's letter of the 21st September 1888. A despatch from the Governor of Hong Kong enclosed in Colonial Office letter YOU of the 4th July 1896 (10525/95) contains evidence, moreover, of an agreement dating from 1862 and accepted by the Secretary of State for the Colonies that the Military Departments should have allotted to them free of charge all Government land and premises in the Colonies that may be deemed necessary. The Secretary of State for War is therefore unable to understand how it can be maintained that no general liability on the part of Hong Kong to provide land for military purposes free of cost has ever been admitted.

With regard to the special scheme of Barrack services drawn up in 1894 towards which the Colony and War Department were to pay one-third and two-thirds respectively, the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury and the Secretary of State for War agreed, in January 1895, to waive insistence on the right to free sites on the ground of exceptional circumstances, expressly reserving the general right of the Imperial Government whilst