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I am also to transmit to you a copy of a letter which has been addressed by this Office to the Treasury* on the subject of providing for the first cost of the proposals of the Committee.

I am to request that you will move Colonel Stanley to give his early consideration to the measures recommended by the Committee for immediate adoption as far as they concern the War Department.

The number of guns required for these Colonies is fifty-eight 61 or 7-ton guns, of which Sir Michael Hicks Beach understands that thirty-four are being sent out by the War Department, as well as thirty-six 64 or 80-pounder guns. For other Colonies, as to which subsequent communications will be made to you, there will be required forty-nine 63-ton guns, and thirty-three 64-pounder guns, making a total of ninety-seven 6-ton guns and sixty-nine 64-pounder guns, to meet which requirements there are available only from thirty to forty 63-ton guns. The Committee state that these guns can be manufac tured at the Royal Gun Factory at the rate of two and a half per week, the delivery to commence after three months, but that the supply might be greatly accelerated by having recourse to Sir W. Armstrong's works at Elswick. I am to request that you will call Colonel Stanley's serious attention to the necessity for setting the Royal Factory imme- diately to work, and not neglecting any auxiliary means of supply, and Sir Michael Hicks Beach will be glad to be informed as soon as possible of the steps which Colonel Stanley may decide to take in this matter.

I am, &c.

No. 47.

(Signed)

W. R. MALCOLM.

(Confidential.) Sir,

Colonial Office to Admiralty.

Downing Street, April 20, 1878.

I AM directed by Sir Michael Hicks Beach to transmit to you, for thè consideration of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, the accompanying copy of the Report, as regards the Cape and the Eastern Colonies, of the Committee appointed to consider the temporary measures necessary for the defence of the Colonies in the event of war.†

I am also to transmit to you a copy of a letter* which has been addressed by this Office to the Treasury on the subject of providing for the first cost of the proposals of the Committee.

I am to request that you will-move their Lordships to give their early consideration to the measures recommended by the Committee for immediate adoption, particularly to the suggestion that gun-boats of the "Comet" class should be permanently stationed at Table Bay, Singapore, and Hong-Kong.

I ain,

&c.

No. 48.

(Signed)

W. R. MALCOLM.

Extract from the "Daily Telegraph" of April 25, 1878.

Berlin, April 21, 1878.

THE accounts published daily in the German and Austrian newspapers of the naval preparations under way, or at least contemplated by the Russian Government in antici- pation of a war with England, though somewhat sensational, and, I have reason to believe, considerably exaggerated, claim a certain modicum of attention and consideration, chiefly because they are suggestive of one or two minor precautionary measures which, despite our undisputed supremacy on the seas, we cannot afford to neglect, under penalty of being disagreeably surprised some fine day by a Russian success, possibly trifling and unimpor- tant, but of which our enemies would be inordinately proud, by reason of its being achieved in a direction peculiarly humiliating to us. It seems to me that the compara- tively unprotected condition of Heligoland and of some 2,000 British subjects inhabiting that island is a subject to which the notice of Her Majesty's naval and military authorities might, at the present moment, be vouchsafed with considerable advantage to our maritime- interests, as well as to those of the island itself. Heligoland lies quite handy to the Russian

+ Vide Miscellaneous, No. 35.

* No. 45.

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