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Boxe

[This Document is the Property of Her Britannic Majesty's Government.]

SECRET.

Printed for the use of the Colonial Office. October 31, 1899.

No. 198 M.

HONG KONG.

Strength of Garrison.

W.O. No. 083/3576.

Memorandum by the Colonial Defence Committee.

1. THE War Office have referred to the Colonial Defence Committee a copy of a despatch of the Governor of Hong Kong, dated the 27th May, 1899, on the subject of the occupation of the leased territory, in which reference is made to the question of increasing the garrison of Hong Kong.

Extracts from the despatch and its enclosures, so far as they bear on the latter question, are printed as an Appendix to this Memorandum.

2. The correspondence now before the Colonial Defence Committee deals with several distinct though interdependent questions, but the Committee conceive that their opinion is desired on that of the modification, if any, rendered necessary in the garrison recommended by them for Hong Kong in consequence of the acquisition of the new territory.

3. Owing to the hostile action of the Chinese, the occupation of the territory leased to Great Britain by the Chinese Government has not been a peaceful one, but has necessitated the employment of troops from the garrison of Hong Kong and from Her Majesty's ships in harbour, and has involved the military occupation of the town of Sham Chun, which lies beyond the northern boundary of the leased territory as defined in the delimitation under the Convention of 1898.

The General Officer Commanding points out that if the occupation of the new territory by the military forces were to be indefinitely prolonged, it would impose upon his troops the performance of duties beyond the sphere of their proper employment, and if it were recognized as normal and continuous, would require an addition pro tanto to his garrison. He adds that if in present circumstances the fortress were threatened with attack, he would be compelied to at once draw in the outlying troops.

4. The Colonial Defence Committee concur in these observations. They have never contemplated that the garrison of Hong Kong should be calculated upon any other basis than that of the defence of the essential parts of the naval port, the dock- yard, and the military and naval establishments. The chief object of obtaining possession of the leased territory was to secure round those establishments and their defences a sphere in which no military action could be taken or allowed by China or by any other Power to our detriment.

5. In considering how the garrison of Hong Kong would have to be disposed in the event of an attack from the mainland, the selection of a defensive position of limited extent is obviously of the first importance. The information at the Com- mittee's disposal as to the topography of the new territory is too scanty to admit of any judgment based upon the contours of the ground, but it is patent that there are several short positions, viz., across the successive necks of the isthmus intervening between Mirs Bay and the waters connected with the Canton River, and that the width of these positions increases with the distance from Kowloon, ranging from about 3 miles at the southern branch of Tolo Harbour to 13 miles at the frontier between

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