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APPENDIX I.
Governor to Secretary of State.
(Secret.) My Lord,
Government House, Hong Kong, December 11, 1908. WITH reference to your secret despatch of the 10th July, and in continuation of my secret despatch dated the 5th October on the subject of the defence of Hong Kong Harbour against torpedo attack, I have the honour to submit a letter which I have received from His Excellency Vice-Admiral Sir Hedworth Lambton, Naval Commander-in-Chief, whose opinion on the question I had invited.
2. This despatch raises issues of such extremely grave importance, in regard to the defenses of this Colony, that I requested the views of the General Officer Commanding (who is President of the Local Defence Committee) upon it. I have the honour to attach his letter with Admiral Lambton's comments.
3. In regard to the immediate question at issue, your Lordship will observe that the Commander-in-Chief and the General Officer Commanding are at one in cousidering that it would be preferable to build a breakwater at Chung Kwango (Junk Harbour) than at Kellet's Bank, and both deplore the withdrawal of the mines without the substitution of submarine boats.
4. The question of the efficiency of the land batteries to deal with any possible or probable attack by sea is one upon which I am not qualified to express an opinion which would carry any weight. The capital invested here, in dockyards only, within recent years is very great. The new naval docks and workshops have cost, I believe, not less than 1 to 14 million sterling, and I should imagine that Messrs. Butterfield and Swire's new docks have cost much the same, and there are also the extensive docks and workshops of the Kowloon Dock Company. The vital necessity of preventing these from falling into an enemy's hands, together with the Admiralty coal depot, is one upon which it is needless to lay stress, and their capture might well afford grounds, as it seems to me, for making Hong Kong "the primary objective" of a hostile fleet.
I have, &c.
(Signed)
F. D. LUGARD, Governor, &e.
Sir,
Enclosure 1.
Naval Commander-in-Chief to Governor,
King Alfred," at Hong Kong, November 25, 1908.
I REGRET my delay in replying to your Excellency's letter of the 21st August, in which you ask for my views on the practicability or otherwise of constructing a defence breakwater on Kellet's Bank, and also for my opinion on a proposed alternative scheme to construct a rubble mound from the south point of Stonecutter's Island to the nearest of Green Island.
2. The question of the defences of Hong Kong is of such vital importance to the Empire that I have refrained from giving my views on one comparatively unimportant point, lest it should be inferred that I am satisfied with the revision of the fixed defences as proposed by General Sir F. Owen's Committee in 1906, and which has received the approval, and been adopted by, the Admiralty, War Office, and Colonial Defence Committee.
3. It is my disagreeable duty to prove that these defences are entirely futile and insufficient, and that their conception shows a complete inappreciation of what modern war will really mean.
4. When you have read this letter you will be reluctantly forced to agree with the conclusions I have arrived at, and will readily understand the delicate task I am taking in hand, and the necessity I was under of verifying certain details which required my personal inspection, therefore it was impossible to answer before my return to Hong Kong after the annual summer cruise.
5. To deal with the "breakwater" question first. In all these discussions the essential point to always remember is that the commercial welfare of Hong Kong far outweighs every other consideration, and no scheme should be entertained that might in any way adversely affect the overwhelming and pre-eminent prosperity which Hong Kong now enjoys in the Far East.
Even supposing the breakwater scheme to be feasible at a reasonable expense, and that feasibility, owing to the enormous depth of mud, is very questionable, no one can say what effect it would have on the tides—whether it would tend to silt up the harbour.
But it is certain that it would greatly incommode the vast junk traffic to and from Canton, and even when completed, as it only partially closes the entrance, would but give a false security to the men-of-war at their present anchorage.
Therefore I unhesitatingly declare against it.
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