CO129-461 - Governor Sir Stubbs - 1920 [5-7] — Page 247

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CONFIDENTIAL.

My Lord,

RE

40403

R: 14 AUG 201

GOVERNMENT HOUSE.

HONGKONG. 16th June, 1920.

243

Ivo

15698

18567

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt

of Your Lordship's confidential despatch of the 9th April, 1920, enclosing copies of remarks by the Overseas Defence Committee on the report on the Hongkong Defence Corps for 1918-19.

2.

Your Lordship will now have seen from my despatch No.55 of the 18th February, 1920, that the Defence Corps has been reconstructed on a voluntary basis. It is now known as the Hongkong Volunteer Defence Corps.

3.

Personally I view with regret the abandonment

of the principle of compulsory service as it existed in the old Defence Corps but I was unable to get away from the fact that there was very strong popular feeling against the retention of the principle of compulsion. An attempt to retain it would have met with vigorous opposition and if the compulsory service ordinances had been kept in force, which would have involved a use of the official majority in the Legislative Council the result would have been that the auxiliary forces of the Colony would have consisted of a body of discontented and unwilling men. In these circumstances I

was satisfied that the best results would be obtained by re- establishing a volunteer force, which at first would probably

be small in numbers but which would doubtless increase in the

future when the men who had returned from active service had THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

VISCOUNT MILNER, G.C.B.,

&C..

&c.

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