CAB11-57-9 — Page 13

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CHAPTER I.

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D6 M3

Russia

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5. As regards (4), although it will always be provident to pay consideration to the probabilities of an attack by China, the Chinese have of late shown themselves to be of small account as a fighting power. If, as have been shown, they are incapable of offering any serious resistance when acting on the defensive, the conclusion may be drawn that they have not, at the present at least, the enterprise to undertake any offensive movement.

The fleet of China may for the present be neglected; but if allied with France or Russia, her torpedo-boats at Whampoa, which, according to latest and reliable informa- tion, number eleven, two large and nine small, with crews for two only, might be available against British ships, and a nucleus of European troops might make a Chinese army formidable in an attack on the Colony from the land side.

6. Great Britain has now pushed her frontier-line some 13 miles to the north, acquiring the greater portion of the district of Sin-On, and the Islands of Lantau and Lamma, with adjacent islets around the coast of Hong Kong, an area of about 200 square miles. The territory on the mainland lies between the estuary of the Canton River on the west and the many-armed Mirs Bay on the east. The boundary-line, 11 miles long, will now be drawn between its northern arm, Starling Inlet, and the shallow indentation called Deep Bay on the west.

This accession of territory now enters largely into the Scheme of Defence. It enables Devil's Peak to be fortified, thus guarding the approaches to Lyemun by water and the chain of hills running across the Kowloon Peninsula to be held. These hills command the whole of Kowloon at a range from 5,000 to 6,000 yards, and would afford a very strong position to an enemy effecting a landing on the mainland unless denied to him. A footing on those hills would, moreover, enable him, in all probability, to mount guns of heavy calibre on them, which would endanger the safety of Hong Kong itself. But it is not likely, perhaps, that an enemy of the force contemplated in this Scheme would waste the time at its disposal in raiding Chinese villages and hovels near the waterways of Mirs Bay and the Lantau roads.

It is hardly probable that a Chinese army would, in view of recent events, have the enterprise to make an advance on Hong Hong from Canton. The difficulties of transporting beavy guns and of provisioning an army in the field would prove insuper- able to it in its present state of inefficiency.

7. Germany maintains a fleet in Far Eastern waters, but it may at present be said to refit at Hong Kong, although her docks at Kiao Chao are making rapid progress towards completion.

8. Since August 1898 America has been in possession of Manila and its bay, and has a fleet of ten ships armed with modern guns, and a land force of 40,000 men, fifty- four hours' steaming from Hong Kong,

9. It will be seen from the above considerations that Hong Kong might possibly be menaced by a very powerful attack from Japan, or by a serious attack from French Indo-China, with the possible assistance of Russia's naval forces in the Far East. An attack of this nature on a large scale cannot, however, be delivered so long as His Majesty's navy maintains sea supremacy; and the Admiralty have accepted the responsibility of protecting all British territory abroad against organized invasion from

the sea.

His Majesty's ships, however, while engaged in hunting out and destroying the squadrons of an enemy, may not be in a position to prevent the predatory raids of hostile cruisers on British ports; but it is in the highest degree improbable that such a raid would be made by more than a few ships, nor could it have any permanent effect unless troops could be landed. Moreover, the available landing parties of a few cruisers, in constant expectation of having to oppose His Majesty's ships, would not be a formidable body in point of numbers.

It is mainly to meet raids of this nature that Hong Kong has been fortified and garrisoned, and the present Defence Scheme drawn up.

Cable Communication.

10. The normal cable route from the United Kingdom to Hong Kong is by the Eastern Telegraph Company's four cables from Porthcurnow to Gibraltar, of which one

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