340
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be ignorant of local conditions and could not therefore
be regarded as a 'competent surveyor'.
8.
With regard to paragraph 8 of the Army Council's draft letter I find it difficult to understand
the reference to piecemel agreements. It has been the
previous experience of this Colony that to await a final
decision by the War Office as to all its requirements amounts to postponing any settlement to a remote and
indefinite future, and it was therefore suggested that a general agreement should now be come to regarding arees to be surrendered and surrender velues, and that the exchanges
should take place as and when the Military Authorities were reedy to move. This Colony would gladly accept the scheme
as a whole, if such a thing were possible; but, as it has been reiterated again and again, the matter is one of the
utmost urgency and the Army Council has apparently not even begun to consider details of its future dispositions at Customs Pass or such other locality as may eventually
be selected. In the meantime all arrangements are in train for the removal of the Headquarters and three Companies of
British Infantry to Gun Club Hil), and there is ample
accommodation at Whitfield Camp for the Hongkong and
Singapore Royal Garrison Artillery who will be dislodged.
The Army Council appears to be under some misapprehension
on this latter point.
9.
There are in effect two main points of
disagreement between the Colony and the Army Council, namely the limit of liability for reprovisioning and the
question of the valuation. On the former point the ruling of His Majesty's Government is clear and I submit that the
Army Council should be required to accept it. As regards
the valuation the intention to accept as binding a local agreement is also clear, but I have indicated the concession which the Colony would be prepared to make in
order
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