PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
TTLE C.O.885
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18 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
III. A considerable amount of correspondence
has taken place with regard to the necessity for the presence of one of His Majesty's ships in the West Indies. After prolonged discussion an arrangement was arrived at in February 1906 under which the Admiralty undertook to keep a ship of war in West Indian waters which might, however, with the consent of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, go to Bermuda during the hurricane season (viz., about July to October). There is inconvenience and even danger in this arrangement, inasmuch as Bermuda is far distant from the West Indies, especially from Trinidad and British Guiana, in both of which Colonies riots have recently occurred and may recur. The Admiralty have undertaken that the vessel will be sent immediately from Bermuda to any point in the West Indies where she is required, on the request of the Secretary of State, but the position during any period in which the vessel is absent from West Indian waters is unsatisfactory, from the fact that even four days' delay in arriving at the scene of action may have created a situation with which one warship and its crew can no longer cope
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In September 1906 the Admiralty proposed that, in the interests of the health of the crew of the vessel, permission should be given for the ship to cruise for a month during the hurricane season off Halifax. It was pointed out that this cruise would greatly diminish the already inadequate provision for naval help in cases of riot, since for that month the vessel would be to all intents and purposes unavailable, and the Admiralty were asked, if the vessel were removed, to substitute another vessel at Bermuda whose services could be utilized in the West Indies if need arose.
The danger of the situation was brought out by the occurrence of a strike in British Guiana just at the end of September. Fortunately it was premature, and came to an end without a riot occurring, but, had a riot broken out, help from Bermuda might easily have been too late to prevent serious results.
There is a further possibility of danger when it becomes known in the West Indies that no ship of war is in West Indian waters. At present a degree of security is obtained from the fact that it is not, as far as the Colonial Office
aware,
realized in the West Indies how far away naval assistance may be during the hurricane season,
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but in course of time this must be discovered by the populations concerned.
The question raised is not one of naval strategy upon which the Admiralty must remain the sole judge. It is a question of Imperial police. And although it is recognized that this function cannot be said to be a direct duty of the Navy, it is, nevertheless one which will have to be discharged by some Department of State, and which no Department except the Admiralty is capable of efficiently discharging. A single ship or regiment in a Colony or group of Colonies may be of no consequence in a war with a civilized Power. But its value is simply inestimable as a safe- guard against civil disturbances which in various portions of the Colonial Empire, and more especially in the West Indies, may at any moment attain serious dimensions, to the wide- spread destruction of both life and property, and
to grave public and Parliamentary scandal.
It is therefore considered essential that a man-of-war should always be available in West Indian waters; that the vessel should cruise frequently among the islands, and should be replaced by another whenever she is not in immediate readiness to sail to any point at which her services may be required. Periodical visits by larger squadrons, if they can be arranged by the Admiralty in the ordinary course of training, are of undoubted advantage as tending to enhance the prestige and authority of British Government and of the British flag among impressionable native populations; but such displays of occasional force, however imposing and beneficial, can form no substitute for the daily presence, upon patrolling duty, of at least one suitable vessel of war, not necessarily armoured or heavily armed, but capable of providing strong landing parties of sailors or marines with Maxim
guns and light field artillery, together with hospital and other stores.
IV. It is understood that it is considered very desirable by the Foreign Office that one of His Majesty's vessels should be kept in the Red Sea with headquarters at P'ort Soudan. Similarly it is very desirable that the Somaliland Coast should be from time to time patrolled by a ship of war, and that such a vessel should be always within easy reach in order to make control of the arms traffic into Africa effective and to put the
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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