HC Deb 04 December 1884 vol 294 cc656-7
SIR DONALD CURRIE

I desire to make a personal explanation. During the debate upon the Navy, and while I was in the Lobby for a brief interval, the Surveyor General of Ordnance (Mr. Brand) contradicted one of the statements in my speech. He is reported in The Times to have said— The hon. Member for Perthshire stated that the Government had never sent (guns) to Hong Kong until after the appearance of an article in The Pall Gazette. But they had sent these guns long before—viz., last June. Mr. Speaker, I said nothing whatever about guns. What I did say was this— Hong Kong was only ordered to be fortified when The Pall Mall Gazette sounded the first note of warning as to the state of the Navy in September last. The instructions to fortify were then despatched by telegraph. Now, this is confirmed by the following extract from a letter, written by The Times Correspondent at Hong Kong on the 17th of September last, three days after the first article in The Pall Mali Gazette on the state of the Navy— During the week a telegram has been received from England ordering the immediate commencement of the works already sanctioned for the protection of Hong Kong.