Sessional_Paper_1890 — Page 431

No. 31

90.

No 327.

HONGKONG.

DESPATCHES RESPECTING INCREASED MILITARY CONTRIBUTION.

Laid before the Legislative Council, by Command of His Excellency the Officer Administering the Government, on the 15th December, 1890.

MY LORD,

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, HONGKONG, 10th September, 1890.

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of Your Lordship's Despatch, No. 148, of the 25th of July, transmitting to me copies of correspondence which has passed between the Colonial Office and the War Department on the subject of the increased Military Contribution by this Colony.

2. I notice with pleasure the concluding paragraph of Mr. WINGFIELD's letter to the War Office of the 23rd of May, in which he states that Your Lordship desired him to add that the liberal manner in which the Un-official Members of the Legis- lature met the demands of the Imperial Government, enabled a constitutional crisis to be avoided, and that it would be politic, in Your Lordship's opinion, to make any concession which it might be possible to meet their views.

I entirely agree with Your Lordship that it would have been politic in the circumstances had the War Office given some consideration to Your Lordship's very reasonable suggestion. But far from doing this they seem to take advantage of the Council's liberality by having recourse to a different line of argument to that conveyed at their dictation in Your Lordship's Despatch, No. 8, of the 20th of January last.

That Despatch, as does the letter from the War Office of the 14th of July, unquestionably refers to what the garrison in Hongkong was in 1863; to the amount of contribution then paid and to the revenue of the Colony in that

year, and it then goes on to compare the state of things at that period with what exists at present.

But the real purport of that Despatch was to make a demand for a further contribution on the ground that circumstances rendered it necessary to increase the garrison here.

This is clearly shown in the first paragraph where Your Lordship addresses me on the subject of the additional garrison required "by the fortifications recently "erected at Hongkong and their armament."

Again in paragraph 7 Your Lordship says, "The cost of this garrison (ie. "the future garrison) will be about 280,000l. a year and will consequently be 'nearly three times as great as was the expense of the garrison in 1863 when the "Colonial contribution was fixed."

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In paragraph 19 Your Lordship remarks "that the 40,000. which the "Colony will pay in each of the next three years is only one seventh of the cost "of the garrison, while the remaining six sevenths, 240,000, will still be borne by "the mother country."

The Right Honourable,

Lord KNUTSFORD, G.C.M.G.,

&c.,

Se.