CAB9-1_PT1 — Page 296

SECRET.

106-R

Printed for the use of the Colonial Office. April 9, 1895.

Page 296

SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

No. 350.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

Report by Naval Commandant for Year 1893-94.

Remarks by the Colonial Defence Committee.

THIS Report raises an important question by its recommendation at p. 4 that the armament of the "Protector" should be brought up to date, which it is presumed means giving her Q.F. guns, and that two torpedo- boats should be provided. The recommendation is made on the ground that this is the most efficacious method of protecting the anchorage at Port Adelaide and the undefended ports in Spencer Gulf.

The Colonial Defence Committee have steadily opposed expenditure on floating defences regarded as substitutes for or as auxiliaries to forts. Their employment as forts for the defence of a position means a voluntary acceptance by the defence of the disadvantages under which the attack labours, and used in conjunction with fixed defences they are apt to clash with the latter.

In the case of most of the Australian ports, fixed defences provide sufficient protection from any attack likely to be made.

The case of South Australia is somewhat different; excepting Port Adelaide, the ports in Spencer and Vincent Gulfs are without fixed defences, and as the "Protector "exists, and as her sphere of action can be distinctly the purely Colonial waters of Spencer and Vincent Gulfs, the value of this ship to the Colony, provided she is efficiently manned and equipped, seems real and substantial.

The advisability of expending money in improving the present fairly powerful armament of this vessel, and in providing two torpedo-boats, also the policy of establishing a Volunteer Corps to man signal stations on a long and very advanced line away from the homes of these men, are other matters which the Committee are not prepared to endorse without further informa- tion. They notice that there is nothing to show that the Report has been seen by the Naval Commander-in-chief on the station, to whom all important proposals connected with naval defence should be communicated before being sent home.

It is suggested that the Report should be returned to the Colony for submission, in the first place, to the Naval Commander-in-chief, with a view to eliciting his views, which, being based on full local knowledge, would be of value to the Committee in deciding the advice which they will eventually have to give to Her Majesty's Government on these proposals.

W. PEACOCKE, Secretary,

Colonial Defence Committee.

(Signed)

April 5, 1895.

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PRINTED AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE BY T. HARRISON.—9/4/95.

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