CAB9-1_PT1 — Page 147

SECRET.

61-R

Printed for the use of the Colonial Office. June 1893.

CEYLON.

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CEYLON.

695.

Reply to Colonial Defence Committee's Remarks of May 1892.

Remarks by Colonial Defence Committee.

THE Colonial Defence Committee have had before them the reply of the Local Defence Committee of Ceylon to their remarks of May 1892.

1. It is difficult to properly consider this reply until it has been embodied in the Scheme already sent in; and the Colonial Defence Committee merely note that suggestions are made in it for the supply of telephones, water tanks, and torpedo-boats, which should form the subject of separate letters. With regard to the last suggestion, it is useless to make a recom- mendation to localize torpedo-boats, as the Admiralty have consistently declined to tie down vessels of any class to the local defence of ports. The Committee also desire to point out that the Admiralty Confidential despatch of the 26th May, 1892, on the subject of distant patrolling, referred to at p. 5, has not been quite correctly interpreted, as it carefully refrained from laying down any hard and fast rule. While pointing out that it was only in rare and exceptional cases that such a system could be of any use, it recommended that the circumstances of each place should be locally considered, as only a close investigation of all the conditions of each locality could show in what cases it would be likely to prove of utility.

They suggest that the Governor should be requested to cause the Local Committee to reassemble with a view to their revising the Scheme already submitted up to date, and incorporating with it their last reply so as to present the whole in a collective form. The present is a favourable opportunity for doing this, as a Memorandum of new instructions, explaining the particular form in which the Colonial Defence Committee think it desirable that all defence schemes should in future be arranged, will shortly (when approved by Her Majesty's Government) be circulated to all Colonies, fortresses, and coaling stations. On the receipt of those instructions the Local Committee should reassemble and, in revising the Scheme, rearrange it on the lines therein indicated.

2. The Colonial Defence Committee desire to emphasize the conditions laid down in Colonial Office Circular of the 18th November, 1886, that the subject of a local scheme of defence is to lay down "arrangements for the immediate utilization of the personal and material resources of such Colony" in the event of war. In previous remarks they have pointed out that such a scheme of defence should be restricted to the application of the existing resources of the Colony to the best advantage, and that the question of increasing those resources in cases where any deficiency is brought to light

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