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SECRET.
NOTE BY THE SECRETARY.
(Issued by direction of the Prime Minister.)
THE Treasury Minute dated the 4th May, 1904, which established the Secretariat of the Committee of Imperial Defence on its present basis, laid down the functions of the Secretary, among which appears the following:-
“To make possible a continuity of method in the treatment of the questions which
may from time to time come before the Committee."
It is in fulfilment of this constitutional function, and without any intention of otherwise animadverting upon any decision of the Committee of Imperial Defence, that the following remarks are submitted for consideration.
an
2. At the last (109th) Meeting of the Committee it was decided that “ indication of the defensive value of submarine mines should be added to paragraph 15" of C.I.D. Paper 71-C, entitled, "Canada-Scale of Attack on Prince Rupert. Before the document giving effect to this recommendation is communicated to the Dominion, it is desired to draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that this decision is hardly consistent with the previous proceedings of the Committee of Imperial Defence on the subject of submarine mines, which led to the removal of the minefields from the Canadian port of Halifax on the direct recommendation of the British Government.
3. The general abolition of this form of defence was resolved on by the Committee of Imperial Defence in 1905 after a prolonged investigation and discussion. A series of questions was addressed to the Admiralty by the direction of the Prime Minister (Mr. Balfour) in 1904, and these were answered in a seuse adverse to the use of this form of defence. (C.I.D. Paper 40-B and Mr. Austen Chamberlain's Memorandun 42-B, which had the entire concurrence of Sir John Fisher, Minute (3) 58th Meeting C.I.D.) The Director of Military Operations dissented from the views expressed by the Admiralty (C.L.D. Paper 43-B), but subsequently withdrew that part of his Memorandum, expressing the opinion that observation mines could be recognised as an effective defence by night against torpedo craft. (Minute (2) 60th Meeting C.I.D.) Meanwhile the Secretary of State for War (Mr. Arnold Forster) had prepared a scheme for handing over the submarine mine defences at naval ports to Admiralty charge. (Minute (3) 58th Meeting C.I.D.) The final decision of the Committee of Imperial Defence was made at its 60th meeting, the 2nd December, 1904, as follows :-
(a.) The Admiralty must be the sole authority for advising as to what classes of hostile ships may reasonably be expected to attempt to enter certain waters, and whether the attempt to enter such waters would ever be made.
(6.) As it has already been decided that no submarine mine defences are to be laid out in any of the naval ports without Admiralty sanction, the whole installation of the submarine defences should at the above ports be
at once transferred to Admiralty charge.
•
The question of submarine mines in commercial ports was referred to the Admiralty, whose report is given in C.I.D. Paper 49-B.
Consequent on this report it was resolved at the 64th Meeting of the C.I.D. (Minute 3): (1.) That all submarine mines in the fairway of commercial ports in the United Kingdom should be removed. (2.) The Admiralty to report whether there were any mines outside the fairways in waters which it was desirable to deny to an
enemy.
As regards paragraph 2, the Admiralty reported subsequently that there were no mines in this category. (Minute (6) 56th Meeting C.I.D.) The Admiralty Memorandum 49-B included commercial ports oversea. No specific decision as to those is recorded in the Minutes of the C.I.D. This would appear to have been an oversight in the drafting of the Minutes, as the mines were in fact abolished at these
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