CO129-317 - Governor Sir Blake - 1903 [4-6] — Page 554

Minute by the General Officer Commanding

His Excellency

547

30 JUL 05

The governor of Hong Kong

etc,

etc,

etc,

.I understoed froma conversation with Your Excellency

that you had received a report from the Colonial Defence

Committee aswell as myself, and so i do not forward that

received by me •

As soon as I had read the reprot I communicated with

Major Pritchard, Gemmanding the Heng Kong Volunteers, and

after considerable discussion I arrived at the decision that

although we all agreed (Major Pritchard, the past and present

C.R.A. Colonel Johnson C.M.G. and Majer Bryan and myself)

that Garrison Artillery is the unit which requires strength-

ening in this rertress: yet we are all prepared to admit that

the arduous work connected with guns in the fixed armament,

would not be so popular and attractive to the class of men

of whom the Volunteers are composed, as the lighter work

connected with movable armament or machine guns. We all

recognized this when the change was recommended to Your

Excellency but we had in view efficiency rather than force

of numbers. The Volunteers accepted their share of the change

with great loyalty, and I am strångly averse to going back if

it can be avoided. At the same time the views of the Colonial

Defence Committee would not only have to be gravely consider-

ed but also we recognize that there is so much to our know-

ledge absolutely sound in those views that we have endeavour-

ed to suggest a course by which possibly the views expressed

by

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