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It is inconvenient, and not in accordance with section 5, paragraph 47, Q.R., that recommendations of this nature should be included in the body of a Defence Scheme. If the O.C. troops desires them to be considered in connection with the Scheme they should be brought forward in a letter covering it. In the present instance the Committee are informed that the question of telephonic connection between Tower Hill and the Wilberforce position, which they concur in considering most desirable, is already before the War Office. The Committee look upon visual signalling at Sierra Leone as most unreliable, and think that it should be resorted to as little as possible.
9. Pages 17 to 19, paragraphs 20 to 34.-The whole of the paragraphs regarding communications and signals are vitiated by the use of the word "should" in fact, they are suggestions rather than a programme of action to be taken. The O.C. troops should, after obtaining the sanction of the Governor to the proposed employment of the police, make his arrangements and draw up a plan. This should be recorded in Chapter III of the Scheme, as action to be taken by the officer who will be made responsible. This officer would presumably be the officer in charge of signallers who is told off to the Staff of the O.C. troops in paragraph 14 on p. 13, but to whom no definite duties are assigned. He might more appropriately be termed "Intelligence Officer," and would act with the Superintendent of Civil Police, who, it is inferred, will supply the personnel for look-out stations, patrols, and runners, and with the Inspector-General of Frontier Police, who will probably be in the best position to supply intelligence from the northern frontier. The instructions to these two officers in the matter should also be given. It should be noted in the Scheme that the equipment for carrying out the proposed system of signalling is available.
10. Page 19, paragraph 35.-In paragraph 17 of their Remarks dated. the 25th July, 1893, on the revision of the Defence Scheme to September 1892, the Colonial Defence Committee explained at length the untrust- worthiness of boat patrols, and it is presumed that the reference to them has been left in the present Scheme by error.
11. Pages 19 and 20, paragraphs 44 to 47.-These paragraphs contem- plate the concentration of the whole of the infantry, in the event of a landing in the south of the peninsula, for the defence of Waterloo, if time permit, and subsequently of positions by the stream east of Hastings and by the stream east of Grafton.
The Colonial Defence Committee presume that the O.C. troops has very carefully considered the advisability of meeting an enemy in the first instance at these places rather than in the previously prepared positions near Glou- cester and Kissi. In any event it would hardly seem advisable to entirely denude the Wilberforce Hills of all troops.
12. Page 20, paragraph 48.—It is proposed directly war is declared or cable communication ceases to clear the ground for some 800 yards in front of the line from the foot of Mount Auriol to the Merchants Powder Magazine. No instructions to carry out the necessary demolitions are given in Chapter III of the Report under heading "Action by the Commanding Royal Engineer." As they would involve the payment of a considerable sum for compensation it would appear to be for further consideration whether the work might not be left until an attack is imminent. If the O.C. troops is of opinion that this could not be done with safety, the Scheme of Defence should show definitely the arrangements made to effect the clearance on outbreak of war (possibly with the assistance of the Colonial Engineer), and it should also be considered whether the construction of further buildings on the area in question might not now be restricted.
13. Pages 20 and 21, paragraphs 49 to 56.-These paragraphs which deal with strategic conditions would more conveniently follow paragraph 13 on p. 9, under heading “(ii.) Overland Attack." The modes of meeting various
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