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26. Page 52.-Under the heading "Works," a list should be given of the various field defences and clearances which will be carried out on mobilization, and a Table should be inserted in the Scheme showing the requisite working parties, 'time, tools, and materials. It will be advisable to postpone any considerable destruction of private property until the necessity for this is immediate, but all preparations for such destruction should be made beforehand, and the necessary materials collected on the spot.

27. Page 54, paragraph 29.--Under the heading "Signalling and Telegraphy," a reference should be made to the Telegraph Office that is to be opened at the "Buttes aux Papayes" Signal Station. (See first paragraph on page 38 of Scheme.)

28. Page 56, paragraph 38.-The Colonial Defence Committee suggest that the War Office should call for a Confidential Report from the station as to the civil doctors that could be relied upon to reinforce the officers of the Medical Staff, in the event of a war with France, and also with regard to trustworthy men that could then be engaged as hospital attendants. They do not trace that the local inquiry which they suggested in paragraph 9 of their Remarks, dated the 9th August, 1895, on the Defence Scheme, revised to January 1895, has ever been carried out.

The Colonial Defence Committee desire also to point out that they do not consider the arrangement adopted in deference to the Senior Medical Officer, by which civil prac- titioners are told off to the fighting posts and military medical officers to the hospitals is a satisfactory one in view of the fact that the Local Defence Committee presided over by the General Officer Commanding, are of opinion that "if it ever comes to fighting, the duties assigned to cach class of medical men, will have to be reversed.”

29. Pages 59 and 60, paragraph 44.-The extra medical and surgical equipment shown in this Table as required on mobilization, appears excessive.

30. Page 61, paragraph 46.—It is usual in Defence Schemes to give, under the heading "Action by Chief Ordnance Officer," Tables showing the ordnance stores which will be issued to each unit or department on mobilization. These Tables, periodically revised, take the place of demands which it would otherwise be necessary to send in at that time. So long as such Tables exist at the station it is not essential that they should be printed with the Defence Scheme, though it might be convenient if this were done.

It is suggested that the order of issue, at stated intervals, to the different units and departments, might advantageously be laid down so that each unit or department would know that at a given period after the promulgation of the order to mobilize the issue of its own stores will begin.

Chapter IV.

31. Page 67, paragraph 1 (g).-Correct ranges to buoys or other fixed points in the harbour should always be recorded on boards hung up in batteries in peace time. If this is done it will not be necessary to "accurately ascertain and note them down mobilization.

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32. Page 67, paragraph 2 (a).-No mention is here made of the 6-3-pr. Q.F. guns allotted to No. II Section in the Table on pp. 29 to 32. That Table shows eight machine-guns in that section, whereas in this paragraph only four are mentioned. Probably these four are the only Maxim guns, which, according to the Table on p. 35, were actually available in Mauritius at the date of the revision of the Scheme. In any event, however, the different parts of the Scheme should be brought into accord.

Chapter VI.

33. Page 76, paragraphs 4 and 5.-The Proclamations (C) and (D) proposed to be issued, on the receipt by the Governor of the notification of impending hostilities, have been already dealt with by the Colonial Defence Committee, and they understand that their views have been communicated to the Governor in a despatch No. 91, Secret,

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