Page 48
Page 48
15. Pages 19 to 34.-The instructions to staff and departments given on these pages are general directions as to procedure on mobilization, and require to be supplemented by details and tables. In some instances it is stated in the Scheme that such details are in existence, but in most cases it is laid down that they will be prepared by the officers responsible.
The Colonial Defence Committee look upon it as most advisable that all details which it is possible to work out beforehand should be so worked out, and that the more important of them should be embodied in the Defence Scheme, mainly in the form of tables. For instance, the Assistant Adjutant- General should have the notice for calling out the forces already drafted; the Assistant Quartermaster-General should have plans of the camp sites, with the various camps marked on them, ready for issue; the O.C., A.S.C. should have in his charge tables of the transport necessary for the movable forces and for supplying stores to the various fixed positions, as well as of the supplies it will be necessary to store in these positions. The manning tables of the forts should be constantly kept up to date and embodied in the Scheme, as should also the tables of working parties, tools, materials, and time required for throwing up field defences, and the corresponding details for laying mine-fields. A list of any telegraph lines that will be required to supplement the existing civil system should be given with the men, materials, and time necessary for their erection. The number of sick and wounded for which medical provision may have to be provided should be estimated and tables drawn up showing exactly how this provision, as regards personnel, buildings, and equipment, is to be made. Similarly the Ordnance Officer should have complete lists of the equipment he will have to issue to the different units and departments.
The actual conditions of any war must involve a large number of questions to be settled at the time of its outbreak. It is therefore of extreme importance that every detail for which no new data will be then available should be carefully considered and definitely settled on beforehand.
16. Pages 25 and 26, E 2, paragraph 1.-The details given of the mine- fields at Port Jackson and Newcastle are not intelligible in the absence of plans. In this connection the Colonial Defence Committee would point out that they consider it most important that the Admiralty should be fully informed and consulted as to proposed schemes of submarine mine defence in all parts of the Empire as laid down in Report IX of the Joint Naval and Military Committee on Defence. Unless this is done it will be impossible for Her Majesty's ships to run into ports defended in this manner with the freedom which they would otherwise use.
The condition laid down in this paragraph that the mine-fields at Port Jackson and Newcastle are only to be laid upon the order of the General Officer Commanding, after conferring with the Royal Naval authorities, is satisfactory on the assumption that this is taken to mean that no mines will be put down unless the Senior Naval Officer on the spot concurs.
17. Pages 26 and 27, E 3, and E 4.-The advantages of the arrangement by which No. 4 Company (electricians) of the Engineers is divided into three sections for field telegraphs, electric communications, and electric lights, respectively, of which the first may be placed under the control of the Director of Military Telegraphs, is not apparent. The system adopted in the Imperial service of working the electric lights in conjunction with the mine-fields by the Submarine Mining Companies seems far more convenient, while the distinction between the field telegraph and the electrical communication sections is not made clear by the Scheme.
To avoid divided control, it would seem that these sections should be amalgamated into a Telegraph Company, which should be under the orders of the Director of Telegraphs, whose duties and responsibilities should be generally as defined in paragraphs 8 and 9, Part I, of the Imperial "Regu- lations for Engineer Services, 1895.”
18. Page 32, paragraph 17.—-Reference is made to Ordnance stores h obtained by indent from England in time of war.
2
Page 48
N
30