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As far as the "Cerberus" is concerned the Committee consider that this conclusion is fully borne out. They do not wish to maintain that she can be put to no useful purpose, and as she exists they do not recommend her abolition, but they go so far as to say that if she did not exist they would not, now that the fixed defences are complete, recommend that such a vessel should be provided.
The remainder of the flotilla should be employed as recommended by the Committee in their remarks of June 1894, and not in direct co-operation with the forts and mine-fields. To regard these vessels as absolutely essential to the safety of the port, considering the scale of attack to which it is liable, would be to disparage unduly the value of the fixed defences which the Colony has shown such praiseworthy zeal and energy in providing. But they constitute an additional measure of security which the large area of the inner navigable water renders justifiable at Port Phillip more perhaps than at any other harbour of the Empire.
W. PEACOCKE, Secretary,
April 5, 1895.
(Signed)
Colonial Defence Committee.
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PRINTED AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE BY T. HARRISON.—
- 9/4/95.
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