CO129-498-17 Kowloon Peak Barrack sites- request for re-transfer of land from War Office to the Colonial... 21-4-1926 - 19-8-1926 — Page 10

Tage Tu

Copy.

No. 262.

Sir,

Enclosure 1.

Government House,

Hong Kong, 17th July, 1914.

I have the honour to address you on the subj-

ect of the transfer from the War Department to the Colonial Government of the following areas of War Department land and Military Reserve.

(a)

Mɛau Tau Kok Military Reserve. This Reserve

is described on page 13 of the Statements of Particulars by Colonel J. F. Lewis which accompanied what is known as the Lewis Agreement forwarded in Sir M. Nathan's confident- ial despatch of the 7th of March, 1905. The reservation of this land has already been found to interfere with the development of the Colony along the coast line between Kowloon City and Lyamun, and as the area is seldom used for military exercises owing to other districts made accessible by the Railway being now preferred, I suggested to the Military Authorities that this reserve might be relinquished under conditions embodied in the draft Memorandum of Agreement to which two illustrative plans are attached. These conditions are reasonable seeing that there are many strategical points on the hills in this area which dominate the Kowloon Peninsula. This transfer will involve the re-transfer of the Kowloon Peak Barrack sites and a credit to the War Department in the Military Lands Account of $160,350 (see page 8 of the Memorandum of Agreement).

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

LEWIS HARCOURT, M.P.,

&c.

&C.,

&c.

I