CO885-5 — Page 425

Section VII. D.

No. 89.

EXTRACTS FROM REPORTS OF THE ROYAL ON THE DEFENCE OF

COMMISSION

BRITISH POSSESSIONS AND COMMERCE ABROAD.

LETTER FROM THE EARL OF CARNARVON, WITH ENCLOSURES.

DEAR SIR HENRY HOLLAND,—

In accordance with your request, I have carefully gone through the Report

of the Royal Commission of which I was Chairman, with a view to a decision as to what portions might be presented to the Colonial Conference.

The Report contains a great mass of information given by the numerous witnesses summoned before the Commission. This information was, in many instances, given on

the clear understanding that it should not be made public, and I would, therefore, advise that all such matter should be excluded.

In addition, the Report embodies certain details as to the defences of the Empire as well as the opinions of the Royal Commission officially recorded upon them. I am strongly of opinion that no information of this class should be made available for the use of the Intelligence Departments of other Powers. It may not be practicable for us to secure the same measure of secrecy in these matters as is consistently observed by Continental Governments, but the publication of facts and opinions which might possibly expose our weak points, or in any degree facilitate hostile calculations, weighted as they would be with all the gravity which attaches to the proceedings of a Royal Com- mission, would bring no compensating advantage.

With the exceptions above referred to, which, being considerable, must necessarily give a somewhat fragmentary appearance to the recommendations of the Commission, consider that the accompanying Report might now be made public. The above remark applies particularly to those portions of our third report which I would propose to publish. The extracts from that report are, I think, mainly valuable as showing the very large field of enquiry which was traversed by the Commission, and as indicating some of the general conclusions at which we arrived.

There are two points to which I desire to draw your attention in relation to the work of the Commission. It will be in your recollection that it was originally of our intended to comprise the commercial ports of the United Kingdom in the scope enquiry, and that by the terms of Her Majesty's Commission the four Imperial fortresses The latter were with- of Gibraltar, Malta, Halifax, and Bermuda were so included. drawn from the consideration of the Royal Commission by the Secretary of State for War in 1880, I am bound to say-against my own judgment and I believe that of my colleagues. I believe that had these fortresses been subjected to enquiry, the Commis- sion would have been able to assign to them their proper place in the general scheme of National Defence abroad, and that in consequence public money might have been saved, and the grave problem with which we had to deal considerably simplified. The commercial ports were excluded with our entire concurrence, but later experience leads me to regret that they were not treated concurrently with the coaling stations. The defence of the Empire can be best treated if regarded as a whole, and I trust that in future the fortresses and coaling stations, as well as the commercial ports, may be, as far as possible, considered together as affecting that naval supremacy on which the security of the Empire depends.

(200 7 | 87—H & 8 654 and 350)

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O.

8855 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

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