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sidered, and attacked, if attacked, by a more or less serious expedition, both as regards numbers of Appendix No. 9. men, ships, and class of guns.
The great defect in our present information is the absence of detail in our knowledge of the guns now mounted on shore, both in Java and outer islands.
One word as to the capabilities of the Dutch East Indies :-
If we consider the manner in which the Dutch islands stretch across the sea dividing Asia from Australia, and that the whole of the outer coast of this line has, for the most part, an inhospitable, rocky, or surf-beaten coast, with comparatively few and narrow passages to the interior waters; if we consider that the interior basin of the Java and other seas is bordered by some of the most productive countries in the world, and that, although not everywhere favourable for the largest ships, many more or less navigable and easily improved rivers fall into it; if we again observe that the exits to the north and east into the China Sea are also comparatively narrow and defensible, it appears sufficiently obvious that an alliance and friendship between the Powers holding India and Australia and the line of islands which joins them is an advantage to both, worthy of considerable mutual forbearance; and a quarrel, a thing to be avoided as a grave disaster. If in the course of European changes the Empire of the Dutch Archipelago were to fall with Holland to such a power as Germany, eager for Colonies, and prepared to expend all the local resources and some Imperial on their new acquisition, in the formation of a complete system of defence (it is to be remembered that until the Dutch took up the burden of Atchin, the Colonies paid a large surplus to the Home Government). If the following places were made first class naval stations and fortresses: Batavia and Soerabaia, as the general reserves of the Sunda and Bali Straits, and the Java Sea; Tjilatjap, connected by rail and canal with the two others, as the iron gate and sally-port of the rock-bound western coast; Banda, or some other port in the Moluccas, as the great eastern naval arsenal and reserve; if this main line were supplemented by subsidiary defences and naval supplies and docks, in proportion to the depths of water available, in the Straits of Sunda, Bali Gaspar and Carimata Passages, at the Pontianak, Banger- massin, Makassar, Menado, and Amboina stations: if a sea-going fleet for the outer seas, and a fleet of low draught gun-boats for the inner waters were created, the whole backed up by such a mixed army as Germany would know how to frame, it seems hardly too much to say that the great inner sea would become an almost impregnable and richly supplied fortress, which would command both the Indian and China Seas, and ultimately, perhaps, deprive England of her supremacy in southern India and northern Australia. The Dutch Archipelago must never be allowed to fall into hands at the same time strong and hostile.
L. M. CARMICHAEL, Major D.A.Q.M.G.
NETHERLANDS.
[Corrected to September 1882.]
UNITED STATES.
THE present time is an exceedingly unfavourable one for writing a memoir of a military and naval character upon the subject of the United States. The justice of this assertion will fully appear in the course of the paper, but an enumeration of some of the questions which are at present unde- cided will sufficiently prove the statement.
1. There has been lately a very active agitation for an increase and reorganization of the navy, and elaborate Reports have been prepared and wide-ranging schemes formulated, only to meet with rejection by Congress on the score of expense.
2. A project for the reduction of certain dockyards and the aggrandizement of others is still fought against by local interests, and has taken no definite shape.
3. A movement towards bringing the State militias more directly under the control of the federal and army authorities has remained without solid results, the proposed Bill having been rejected by large majorities in Congress.
4. The agitation for an entire reform of the system of manufacture of heavy ordnance has so far produced little but failure and continued experiment.
5. The urgent annual application for money to repair and adapt the fortifications to modern requirements and modern heavy guns has once more met with the annual denial of sufficient
funds.
6. The important question of the armament of troops with magazine rifles is being investigated by a Board, but no decision or Report has as yet been published.
7. The fact that the Census of 1880 has been made, but its results not yet fully digested, renders the statistics of 1870 obsolete, while no others are available, a source of serious inaccuracy in such a rapidly advancing country as the United States.
It is therefore proposed in the present paper to adhere as far as possible to general views, inde- pendent of the details of the present moment, but to quote freely the sources from which information may be derived.
Principal Authorities.
The most valuable collection of papers for obtaining a general grasp of the whole question of the defence or attack of the United States is "American State Papers, 1862," Intelligence Branch Library,
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UNITED STATES-
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