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[This Document is the Property of Her Britannic Majesty's Government.]
1
SECRET.
No. 196 R.
Printed for the use of the Colonial Office. August 29, 1898.
TRINIDAD.
TRINIDAD.
C.O.
No. 10597.
SECRET.
Defence Scheme, April 1898.
Remarks by the Colonial Defence Committee.
IN considering this Scheme, the Colonial Defence Committee had the advantage of the personal impressions of one of their members, Sir John Ardagh, who was at Port of Spain in January of this year, and also visited Chaguaramas Harbour and the Bocas. They learn from him with satisfaction that the police are a remarkably fine body of men and reflect great credit on their officers, that those members of the yeomanry and volunteer forces that came under his notice were satisfactory and that the various barrack buildings are in good order.
2. The Committee also desire to express satisfaction at receiving a Trinidad Defence Scheme, the preparation of which they have long urged. It is true that the Scheme now submitted is the barest outline of what is required to insure the Colony not being taken at a disadvantage in the event of war but it suffices to enable the Committee to indicate how this outline should be filled up, and they trust that the Governor will assemble at the earliest possible date a local Committee to revise the Scheme by the light of the following remarks. Maps to illustrate it are now under preparation at the War Office and will be bound up with the copies of the next revision. It would assist this preparation if a military sketch could be furnished from the station showing the character of the hills, roads, paths, and woods immediately round Port of Spain.
CHAPTER I.
3. The strategic conditions of Trinidad might be dealt with in this Chapter in terms somewhat as follows:-
"1. Trinidad is an important West India Island lying about 16 miles to the eastward of Venezuela, between 10° 3′ and 10° 50′ north latitude, and 61° 39′ and 62° west longitude. Its average length is about 48 miles, its average breadth 35 miles, and its area 1,754 square miles. Its. chief town and principal port is Port of Spain, situated near the north-west corner of the island. The only lines of telegraphic communication to the Colony of British Guiana pass through Trinidad, and the only cable which, in the event of war with France, would be available for communi- cating from England or the other Atlantic coaling stations to the important coaling station of Castries, St. Lucia, touches also at Trinidad. There is no naval station in this island itself, so that the objects of defending it are to protect its local interests from injury, to defend the cable communications which touch at it, to prevent its resources in coal, supplies, and money benefiting an enemy or assisting his naval and military operations, and, finally, to obviate the grave injury to British prestige, which would result from an unresisted attack on a part of the British Empire.
"From this it will appear that if an enemy attacked Trinidad it would be with a view to inflict injury on Port of Spain, to obtain coal, supplies, or money from it, or to render the cables touching at the island temporarily useless.
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