Page:Twentieth Century Impressions of Hongkong, Shanghai, and other Treaty Ports of China.djvu/282

274 of a much reduced revenue. It has been said that the Colony is already sufficiently taxed, and that the percentage paid is excessive as representing the Colony's interests in proportion to imperial requirements.

To arrive at a just estimate of the proportionate share of any colony in the matter of contribution towards imperial defence is a difficult matter, but there is no doubt that, large as is the amount paid by Hongkong, it is a small fraction of the expenditure on the imperial military garrison and on the local naval establishments which is borne by the Home Government.

The following figures for the year ending December 31, 1906, will give the reader an idea of the amount involved:—

The amount shown in the Hongkong Blue Book for 1906 as being disbursed by the Imperial Government in military expenditure for the same period is £282,023 17s. 10d. This latter sum, it is believed, includes the "North China" command disbursements, but, on the other hand, excludes the cost of all direct supplies from home arsenals and ordnance depots; and, further, has no reference to naval expenditure.

enthusiastic Volunteer movement which swept through the Mother Country in the sixties had an echo in this distant British possession. The suggestion that a Volunteer Corps should be formed in Hongkong was first made in a letter published in the China Mail on January 31, 1860. On March 1, 1862, a public meeting was held in the Court House—there was no City Hall in those days—and it was unanimously resolved to form a Volunteer Corps and to obtain legal sanction from the Government. The result was the passing of Ordinance No. 2 of 1862, by which any gentleman resident in the Colony, irrespective of nationality, could be enrolled a member of the corps. A battery of artillery was first organised, and in December, 1862, a band was formed. In the spring of 1863 a rifle company was added, and in December, 1864, Volunteers were enrolled from among the foreign residents at Canton in a rifle company attached to the Hongkong Corps. On February 7, 1863, Sir Hercules Robinson, the Governor, sanctioned an annual outlay of £195 on condition that there were at least seventy-five effective members of the corps.

On September 15, 1864, the Governor ordered the Volunteers to patrol the streets of the Colony to quiet the minds of the