[This Document is the Property of Her Britannic Majesty's Government.]
Printed for the use of the Colonial Office. August 16, 1898.
SECRET.
No. 194 R.
STRAITS SETTLEMENTS.
0.0.
No. 122. SECRET.
STRAITS SETTLEMENTS.
Defence Scheme revised to December, 1897.
Remarks by the Colonial Defence Committee.
THE present revision of the Defence Scheme satisfactorily embodies the various modifications recommended by the Colonial Defence Committee in their Remarks No. 164 R, dated the 16th July, 1897, the main feature being the organization of a central reserve of five companies of infantry and six field-guns as a mobile force to be stationed at Mount Faber. The following Remarks, with one important exception, are confined to matters of detail.
2. The exception refers to the Traffic Regulations on pp. 97 and 98. These Regulations as they appear in the present revision, are identical with those in the Defence Scheme of December 1896, and except for a few minor alterations suggested in Colonial Defence Committee's Remarks, No. 145 R, with those in the September 1895 Scheme. They are based on proposals of Local Joint Naval and Military Committees of October 1893 and May 1895, modified to some extent by the Remarks of the Colonial Defence Committee on these proposals.
The experience that has been gained by the application of the principles laid down by the Joint Naval and Military Committee on Defence to the various defended ports of the Empire, shows that it is now necessary to revise considerably the Traffic Regu- lations of Singapore.
These Regulations are not intended to refer to obviously hostile ships which, of course, will be dealt with as such by the shore batteries immediately they are recognized. Their main object is to prevent an enemy introducing a vessel into a British port with some treacherous design, such as to block a channel, destroy a dock, or sink a British ship. This involves the necessity for identifying vessels at some place outside the port. It is now recognized that it will not be possible to make known to vessels the position of this examination anchorage until they are about to enter the port. The responsibility of bringing vessels to at the required place, of identifying them, and passing them on, must therefore devolve on the port authority, who will utilize for the purpose certain examination vessels or launches told off to it. If these vessels worked outside the range of the defences of the port, they might, especially at night, be captured or destroyed before they could notify to the defences that they had failed to bring the stranger to. Should the incoming ship, from ignorance or treachery, attempt to evade the examining vessel, the latter should signal to the batteries, which, irrespective of the position the ship may have arrived at, would bring her to either by a signal in the shape of a shot across her bows, or, if this should be ineffectual, by firing at her. In the event of no signal being received from the examination vessel, or in her temporary absence, any ship proceeding at speed towards the inner waters of the harbour, may be suspected to be hostile, and should be brought to by a shore battery, and as soon as she reaches a certain line, termed for convenience the examination line, she must at once be treated as an enemy.
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