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6. The Colonial Office have also referred to the Committee a despatch of the Governor, dated the 25th November, 1902, forwarding correspondence relating to the reorganization of the Hong Kong Volunteer Corps, and copies of the Hong Kong Volunteer Regulations, 1902.

The despatch and the correspondence inclosed are printed as Appendix II.

7. On comparing the Volunteer Regulations just published with those issued in 1899 it appears that the only important alteration is the substitution of two companies of garrison artillery for one field battery, three machine gun companies and one small company of infantry.

The establishments of 1899 were based on the recommendations of the Colonial Defence Committee in their Memorandum No. 82 M, dated the 10th November, 1896, which were specially brought to the notice of the Governor, at the instance of the Secretary of State for War, in a despatch, dated the 12th April, 1897, from the Colonial Office.

In working out the establishments of the Imperial garrison at the War Office it has, therefore, been assumed that the Colony would contribute the artillery personnel (originally laid down at 112 all ranks) to man certain guns of the movable armament, and that the remainder of the Colonial contingent, other than engineers, would be available for infantry duties including the manning of machine guns, which are essentially infantry weapons, and of which there are twelve belonging to the Colony in addition to thirty comprised in the armament of the station. The papers before the Committee supply the first intimation that there will be no Colonial infantry and that it is proposed to maintain two garrison artillery companies (310 all ranks) if a sufficient number of volunteers are willing to become garrison artillery.

It

S. In regard to this last-mentioned point there is little or no evidence in the correspondence forwarded, but it is noticed that there has been a further decrease in the corps of 46 men between March and December 1902. The history of the corps points to the difficulty of maintaining uniform numerical strength over a period of years in a Volunteer force drawn from the European population of Hong Kong. Raised in 1862 as the Hong Kong Volunteers, the corps in two years reached a strength of 266, but was disbanded two years later owing to non-attendance of members. was reorganized in 1878 as the Hong Kong Artillery Corps with 150 members, but the strength fell to 50 in 1881, and in the following year the unit was disbanded, and the Hong Kong Volunteer Corps was formed. The issue of 7-pr. R.M.L. guns in 1883 placed the "field battery "on the firm basis which, in spite of numerical weakness, it has ever since maintained. In 1893 a machine gun company was formed, and in 1899 two machine gun companies, an infantry company, and an engineer company were added. It is not traced whether the Volunteers at Hong Kong have at any time manned heavy guns in the forts; if this was ever the case the arrangement cannot have lasted for any length of time.

Former experience at Singapore, as well as at Hong Kong, shows that the classes of Europeans who volunteer in the Asiatic Colonies are, as a rule, averse to work in batteries with fixed armament, but are attracted by employment with the light mobile armament in the open. The manning of guns of the movable armament and of machine guns provides a congenial and responsible charge calculated to enlist the interest and develop the smartness of the European Volunteers in these Colonies.

9. The Colonial Defence Committee see no objection to the “field battery" being converted into a garrison artillery company of somewhat greater strength, but they doubt whether the training of this company to the service of guns in the fixed armament, as well as of guns of the movable armament, will in the long run prove conducive to efficiency and to the popularity and numerical strength of the company.

The conversion of the three machine gun companies and small infantry company into a second garrison artillery company has no doubt facilitated the administration of the corps by reducing the number of separate units, but this object might equally have been attained by amalgamating the four units into a single machine gun company or infantry unit, which could have been charged with the manning of machine guns and infantry duties generally.

The Commander-in-Chief has lately approved revised principles for calculating artillery garrisons and establishments for all Imperial artillery garrisons abroad. The manning requirements laid down for Hong Kong are 1,201; of these, 1,085 have been provided for in Army Estimates, leaving 116 to be found by the Volunteers. The

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