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Printed for the use of the Colonial Office. November 1895.
QUEENSLAND.
QUEENSLAND.
No. 18494.
Report by Commandant on Queensland Military Forces for the Year 1894–95.
Remarks by the Colonial Defence Committee.
THIS Report discloses an unsatisfactory state of affairs with regard to the defence of the Colony. The armament appears to be in part inefficient, the ammunition in some instances defective, and the personnel to have fallen below the number required, while no steps have been taken to provide for any reserve of men.
2. The Governor, in his letter forwarding the Report, announces his inten- tion of addressing the Colonial Office in a somewhat comprehensive manner on the defensive arrangements of Queensland. Until they have the promised despatch before them the Colonial Defence Committee do not propose to remark on the details of the present Report beyond pointing out that they consider it imperative that a sufficient artillery establishment should be kept up to enable a relief to be furnished for the garrison of Thursday Island.
3. The artillery garrison recommended by the Committee of Commandants in 1890 for that station was 2 officers and 48 men Permanent Artillery, The approved war garrison provided for in the mobilization scheme of 1892 was 2 officers and 48 men Permanent Artillery, and 3 officers and 47 men Cairn's Garrison Battery (until a local artillery force is formed). The Cairn's Garrison Battery was shortly afterwards disbanded, and in the mobilization scheme of 1894 the war garrison stood at 2 officers and 48 men Permanent Artillery. The Colonial Defence Committee, in dealing with the Queensland Defence Scheme of that year, recommended that the approved establishment should be maintained at its full strength of 50 of all ranks, and that a local artillery force should be formed to replace the Cairn's Battery, as the population of the island appeared to admit of this.
4. It is not traced in the present Report that any action has been taken on the latter recommendation, nor is the actual number of men stationed in the island at the date of the Report stated. These men are furnished from "A" Battery of the permanent force. The establishment of this battery was reduced in the year 1893-94 from 153 of all ranks to 131. The officer commanding the battery then reported that it was so small "that it is only just possible, by taking all available men who are not specially employed or otherwise unable to go, to obtain a detachment to relieve the men recently arrived from Thursday Island." The Commandant of the Queensland Defence Forces added that this reduction in the establishment of the corps did "most seriously interfere with its proper efficiency as a garrison battery."
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