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the possibility of transferring the naval establishment from Ascension to St. Helena, provided that the change could be made without mcrificing purely naval interests.

15. The Admiralty replied to the Colonial Office in March 1907 that they were unable to consent to the arrangement proposed by that Department, and the Secretary of State for the Colonies requested the Colonial (Overses) Defence Committee to prepare a Memorandum on the subject for the consideration of the Committee of Imperial Defence.

16. The Colonial (Oversea) Defence Committee prepared a Memorandum, No. 391 M, dated the 6th June, 1907, for submission to the Committee of Imperial Defence, but the Memorandum was not laid before the Committee of Imperial Defence until the beginning of the year 1911.

17. The question of the defence of St. Helena was, however, raised by the First Lord of the Admiralty at the 101st Meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence in February 1909, when it was decided that, as the matter had been so recently under consideration, it was undesirable to disturb the existing arrangements.

18. The Admiralty meanwhile prepared a Memorandum, dated the 14th January, 1909, in which they pointed out that "by slightly defending both St. Helens and Ascension it is possible to deny to a hostile raiding cruiser the only coaling anchorages in an immense area, and so to render large tracts of important trade routes almost immune from the possibility of attack.” This strategical advantage, if not absolutely peculiar to St. Helena and Ascension, was, it wa contended, not possessed in a remotely comparable degree by any other place in the British Empire.

18. The Admiralty Memorandum and the Memorandum prepared by the Colonial (Oversea) Defence Committee in June 1907 were considered by the Committee of Imperial Defence at their 108th Meeting in January 1911, when that Committee came to the conclusion "that the responsi- bility for the defence of naval interests in St. Helens should devolve on the Admiralty, and that the War Office should make over the existing fixed defences to that Department, but should be prepared to send out a garrison to take them over as soon as possible after war is declared."

20. A caretaking party of Royal Marines was sent to St. Helena towards the end of 1911.

PRIFIED AT THE FOREIGN OFFICH BY 0. 3. HARRISON.—18/3/1913.

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