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exchanging signals with, vessels approaching the harbour, what is the personnel manning them, and what is their signalling equipment. It will then be possible to decide whether any use can be made in connection with the defence of information from these stations.
The places referred to in the text are apparently lighthouses. If this be the case, no arrangement for using them as look-out or signal stations that would be recognizable by an enemy as giving them a definite part in the defence is permissible in connection with them. The neutrality of lighthouses is so important to the British Empire that this principle should be strictly adhered to.
Chapter III.-Action by Staff and Departments.
13. Page 25, paragraph 8.--Attention is again directed to paragraph 32 of the Colonial Defence Committee's Remarks, No. 247 R, on the 1900 Defence Scheme. The reference in paragraph 8 should be to the proclamation at the top of page 102, and not to section 189 (2) of the Army Act.
14. Page 27 (C), paragraph 3. Censorship.-The D.A.Q.M.G. will, under the orders of the Chief Staff Officer, superintend the censorship over all telegrams dispatched from, or received in, Hong Kong.
In the mean-
Detailed instructions for cable censorship will be issued hereafter. time arrangements should be made to ensure that an efficient censorship shall be established in the shortest possible time after notification has been received from His Majesty's Government that the censorship should be put in force. The messages which will have to be dealt with at Hong Kong are-
(u.) Terminal messages, i.e., those addressed to or handed in by persons resident at Hong Kong.
(b.) Transit messages, except those which have been already censored.
The maximum staff required at Hong Kong is estimated at one censor, five assistant censors, and fourteen decoding clerks. The Censor should be a military officer, or civilian with military experience, if possible, and all should be trustworthy British subjects. A list of suitable persons should be prepared, so that no delay may occur in appointing the necessary officials whenever instructions to enforce the censorship are received.
As a rule censorship is not to be established without special instructions from His Majesty's Government, defining in detail the nature and extent of the censorship to be imposed, but as it will be of vital importance on the outbreak of war that there should be no delay, it must be distinctly understood that, whether such special instructions have been issued or not, censorship must invariably be established the moment the notification to put the local Defence Scheme in force is received, and in this case, pending the receipt of instructions to the contrary, the following rules will be strictly observed :-
(a) British Government messages are to have precedence of all others.
(6.) No telegram in cipher or in code, except on British Government service (Imperial, Indian, or Colonial) is to be sent, transmitted, or delivered under any pretence whatever without specific instructions from the Secretary of State for War.
(c.) The telegrams of hostile Governments are to be stopped, and their text is to be immediately reported in cipher to the Chief Censor, without notification to the sender or addressee of the fact of a veto having been exercised, and the telegrams are to be held back until the instructions of the Secretary of State as to their disposal are received.
(d) No telegram is to be allowed to pass which, in the opinion of the Censor, could be the means of conveying to the enemy information as to the dispositions or movements of His Majesty's Naval or Military Forces, or which could in any way be prejudicial to the success of the British
arins.
(e.) All messages must be in English, and, if accepted, will be transmitted only at the sender's risk in all respects, and with the proviso that the sender thereby relinquishes all claim to reim- bursement of the charges paid for transmission.
(f) Unsigned or unattested messages will not be accepted for transmission.
15. Page 28, paragraph 2.-In spite of numerous changes in the movable armament, the number of coolies to be furnished by the O.C.A.S.C. for transport of guns and
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