CAB9-1_PT1 — Page 419

SECRET.

No. 150 R.

SIERRA LEONE.

C.O.

No. 107. Secret.

SIERRA LEONE.

Defence Scheme revised to January 1896.

Remarks by the Colonial Defence Committee.

THE present revision of the Defence Scheme is generally satisfactory in those parts which refer to the strategic conditions and the modes of meeting various attacks, and which are practically reproduced from the last revision. It is less so with regard to the detailed arrangements; these, when the Scheme is next revised, should be further amplified and modified by the light of the Colonial Defence Committee's Memorandum No. 46, dated the 3rd May, 1893, and of the following remarks.

In editing the Scheme, certain obvious errors—such, for instance, as that which assigned an armament of four 10-inch R.M.L. and two 64-pr. R.M.L. guns to King Tom Peninsula-have been corrected, certain rearrangements have been made to give additional clearness, and detailed maps have been added.

2. Page 6, paragraph 3.-Attention is called to the form of attack by ships' boats, dealt with in the second part of paragraph 1 of the Remarks of the Colonial Defence Committee, dated the 29th June, 1894, on the Report of the Local Joint Naval and Military Committee of March 1894. reference should be made to this form of attack in the Defence Scheme.

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3. Page 7, paragraphs 7 and 8.-It is thought that these paragraphs give a slightly exaggerated account of the French offensive power in Senegal, at any rate during the first phase of a war, when France will be feeling some anxiety about her own coaling station at Dakar. The garrisons of the French Colonies of Senegal and the Soudan consist of some 1,100 Europeans and 5,500 natives, mostly scattered in small detachments over a large area, where the inhabitants are often hostile. Probably not more than 1,000 men could be collected for an expedition, even at the cost of abandoning some of the recently acquired territory in the Soudan, while owing to the great distances and to the difficulties of communication, the assembly of such a force would require several weeks. On the other hand, the French forces which would be available for an attack on Sierra Leone are likely to increase rather than diminish in the near future, while concentration for such an attack might precede the outbreak of hostilities, and might be con- sidered to justify the temporary abandonment of parts of the Soudan.

4. Page 13, paragraph 14.-In their remarks, dated the 25th July, 1893, the Colonial Defence Committee stated that "the officers in charge of the three different sections of the Defence require to be in possession of instruc-

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