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General Officer Commanding in South Africa as to the best method of associating officers of the Colonial forces with Imperial troops for purposes of instruction.
36. Puge 27, paragraph 156.—The Colonial Defence Committee concur in the Instructors. proposals of the Committee with regard to the employment of Imperial non- commissioned officers as instructors for the Colonial forces, but they consider that the retention of a man beyond five years in such an appoinment should be very exceptional.
37. Pages 27 and 28, paragraphs 157 to 163.-In dealing above (paragraph 29) Uniform. with the question of uniform for the artillery, the Committee have suggested that a head-dress should be given to all the troops of the Cape Colony to distinguish them from the Imperial troops and from those of any other British Colony. In their Memorandum No. 57 M, dated the 19th May, 1896, dealing with Colonial defence generally, which was before the Commission, the Colonial Defence Committee pointed out the advantage of khaki as a colour for the uniform of all Colonial troops, and they note with satisfaction that the Commission recommend this colour for the field-service uniform of the Cape Colonial forces. The disadvantage of a red or blue uniform for full dress is nearly entirely one of expense, and the Commission have no doubt rightly considered this disadvantage more than counterbalanced by the feeling in favour of a red and blue full-dress uniform entertained by the Infantry and Artillery Volunteers respectively. The Committee concur in the proposals of the Commission that a similar uniform should be adopted for each unit of the same arm of the service, and in the advisability of establishing a Government clothing factory "where all uniforms and accoutrements required for the forces could be manufactured, where possible, from materials of Colonial manufacture, instead of importing these articles through contractors from outside the Colony."
38. Pages 28 and 29, paragraphs 164 to 175.-The Colonial Defence Committee do Small arms, not desire to raise any objection to the recommendation of the Commission that the ammunition, and forces of the Cape Colony, with the exception of the Artillery and "native levies ,, musketry. should be armed with a magazine rifle. The Militia and Volunteers of the United Kingdom, and the Militia of the Dominion of Canada, are provided with small-arms of this nature. The Committee think, however, that the Cape Government should be informed of the following opinion of the Committee which has recently been communicated to the Australian Governments on the pattern of small-arms to be adopted by them :-
"The Committee think that the introduction of an arm firing the same ammunition as the Lee-Enfield is a matter of necessity, but they do not recommend as a matter of necessity the entire rearmament of all the forces of the Australian Colonies with the Lee-Enfield magazine rifle and carbine, as this would involve a much larger expenditure than the cost of converting existing Martini-Henry to Martini-Enfield
weapons.
The Committee concur in the proposals to arm Mounted Infantry with rifles, and Artillery with Martini-Enfield carbines.
The Committee do not consider that the circumstances of the Colony are such as to necessitate the very heavy expenditure that would be involved in purchasing or maintaining a reserve of 6,000 arms in each Military District, or 30,000 in all. They think that if the Lee-Enfield small-arm is purchased as the main armament of the forces, 6,000, in addition to one per head of the active defence force (except artillery), should be acquired as a reserve, and should be stored 3,000 at Cape Town, 1,500 at Kimberley, and 1,500 at East London or King William's Town. In addition to this, if all the Martini-Henry rifles now in the Colony (12,127) are converted into Martini-Enfield weapons there will, after the artillery has been com- pletely armed, remain over 10,000 rifles for native levies. The Colonial Defence Committe recommend that this conversion be carried out.
The Committee recommend the adoption of cordite ammunition for the Colonial forces. With the Enfield rifling which has now been adopted for small-arms the wear of the barrels is not so great as to be of serious importance.
The Committee concur in the recommendations of the Commission with regard to effecting improvement in shooting.
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39. Pages 29 and 30, paragraphs 176 to 179.-The Colonial Defence Committee Machine-guns, strongly indorse the recommendation of the Commission that machine-guns should be
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