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Record

[This Document is the Property of Her Britannic Majesty's Government.]

Bosa

Printed for the use of the Colonial Office. December 31, 1896.

SECRET.

No. 151 R.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

C.O.

No. 606. Secret.

مكي

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SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

Defence Scheme, June 1896.

Remarks by the Colonial Defence Committee.

THE Colonial Defence Committee have received with much satisfaction the first Defence Scheme that has been prepared for the Colony of South Australia. They have always looked upon the preparation of such a Scheme as a matter of great importance, which, while it involved practically no outlay to the Colony, would assist those responsible for its military expenditure in directing it solely into those channels where it would meet the definite needs of South Australia. To maintain a military force without definite ideas as to its use, distribution, and action in war, is to incur expenditure without taking every precaution to make it effective.

2. The main principles which should guide the constitution of the defence forces of South Australia are simple. Adelaide and its port, including the anchorage at Largs, should be, as they are, protected by guns and works from the attack of one or two cruisers endeavouring to obtain coal, to levy an indemnity under threat of bombardment, or to temporarily injure the commercial interests of the Colony by causing panic in its chief town. More- over, since in the absence of any organized force on shore, even a small number of men landed for a short time in the vicinity of Adelaide or in one of the neighbouring gulfs would be able to inflict grave damage, it is essential to provide against this nature of attack an adequate force well organized and capable of being rapidly mobilized, since it is at the outset of a war that the probability of a raid is greatest.

Again, since in carrying out the military defence of the coast-line, occasions may evidently arise where a transference of troops to another Colony would be desirable without depriving the vicinity of Adelaide of all protection, some additional force raised under a federal scheme of defence is desirable. With regard to this force, attention is called to the following paragraph of a Memorandum of the Colonial Defence Committee on a "Proposed Organiza- tion of the Military Forces of the Australasian Colonies," dated the 16th May, 1890:-

"Finally, the Colonial Defence Committee desire to point out that the rôle which the Australian Colonies will probably play in the event of war is not likely to be limited to the passive defence of ports little liable to attack. These Colonies will

[1928]

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