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The following sections of the 1903 Scheme have been expunged. In Chapter I, the description of foreign military forces and defended ports in the Eastern seas; Chapter II (D) "Modes of meeting various attacks"; Chapter III (A) "General review of measures to be taken "; Chapter III (E) (ii) "Submarine Mining"; and Chapter III (K) "Action by Chief Paymaster."

These, and other smaller, omissions and the altered form of the Defence Scheme involve a considerable departure from the arrangement recommended in the Colonial Defence Committee's Memorandum No. 46, dated the 3rd May, 1893, on Schemes of Defence and the form in which they should be drawn up. This arrangement is followed in about forty Colonial and Indian Defence Schemes, of which the annual revisions are referred to the Committee for examination; it has now become familiar to many naval and military officers, at home and abroad, whose duties require that they should consult local Defence Schemes; and it ensures to some extent that nothing of importance has been overlooked. Some of the omissions in the Scheme under consideration are probably unintentional: for example, there is no allusion to the extremely important secret code messages directing the Governor to put the Defence partially or wholly in force, and the reference to the subject of obtaining naval concurrence in laying mines is incomplete and out of place. The omission of the greater part of the explanation of the strategic situation of Hong Kong detracts from the value of the Scheme as a record of the reasoned basis on which the standard of defence rests, and of the point of view from which improvements must be considered. The Committee are unable to agree that "whether the attack is made by ships with a landing force of 5,000 Americans, 10,000 Russians, or 40,000 Japanese, the working details of defence remain the same.' (Appendix I, Enclosure, paragraph 5.) As regards the proposed Appendix, the detailed action of the military and of the civil authorities is so inter-dependent in many matters-such as transport, the provision of labour, and the regulation of harbour traffic-that separate treatment is undesirable.

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Table E (i) "Detail of field works to be constructed on mobilization was a useful and compact table. Chapter III (E) (ii), "Submarine Mining," now omitted, was diffuse in the 1903 Scheme: in this section the procedure in preparing to lay mines (on mobilization) and in laying mines (when ordered) should be briefly described, with tables of distribution of men and vessels, and approximate estimates of time. Manning tables for the electric light service should also be furnished.

On the whole, the Committee see no adequate reason for departure in the case of Hong Kong from the generally accepted form. They agree with the General Officer Commanding as to the desirability of keeping the details of the Defence Scheme up to date, and they see no objection to the local issue of provisional corrigenda to the latest printed copies of the Scheme. The number of these corrections will be minimised if the annual revision of the Defence Scheme. prescribed by the King's Regulations is sent home from Hong Kong with regularity, so that the revised Scheme can be reprinted every year. The necessity for printing large portions of this secret document in the gaol (Appendix I, paragraph 2) will thus be avoided.

The Committee concur also in the view that the 1903 Defence Scheme is somewhat diffuse. On the other hand, the reason for giving a fair amount of detail was given by Major-General Hatton's predecessor in his letter covering the 1901 Scheme, as follows:-

"It probably contains subject matter which may be considered superfluous, but the object which has been aimed at has been to prepare it in such a form, that whenever a change in the personnel of the garrison occurs, the relieving officers may at once be put in possession, not only of the duties appertaining to their particular branch, but also of the general situation, and the measures which have been from time to time decided upon to meet the demands of the defence of the Colony."

Some suggestions tending towards greater conciseness will be found in the Committee's Remarks No. 340 R on the 1903 Scheme. In particular, Chapter II (C) (ii) of that Scheme, and the corresponding portion of that now under consideration, contains much matter which might be abridged and redistributed with advantage. Some of the changes in the 1904 Scheme are retrograde, as will be seen on referring to the Committee's Remarks on previous Schemes. Thus, in Chapter I, referring to the Western entrance, the words "it will be found very difficult to defend it with a boom" have been substituted for wording implying that this step will not be taken; in Chapter III (D) the approved artillery chain of command in tabular form has been replaced by a diagram which again wrongly includes Q.F. batteries in the chain of command; in Chapter V the orders which in 1903 were in the required form, though perhaps too lengthy, have returned to an unsatisfactory form.

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