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should also be able to communicate directly with the Officers Commanding Williamstown, Portland, Port Fairy, and Warrnamboul Defences. In the Port Phillip Fortress there should be direct communication between the Fortress Commander and the Commanders of the Sections and of the Field Force, and for artillery purposes the communications should run from the Section Commander's head-quarters to the Fire Commanders' posts, and from the latter to the Battery Commanders' posts.

No arrangements are traced in the Scheme for communication by water between the two sides of the Port Phillip entrance. Such communication obviously becomes of great importance if the works on either side are included in one section of the defence as is convenient for artillery command for the reasons given above.

Chapter III.-Action by Staff and Departments.

11. Page 9.-Under the heading "General Review of Measures to be Taken," a specific reference should be made to the notification that will be sent to the Governor instructing him to put the Defence Scheme partially or wholly into force. The notification will be in the form communicated in Lord Knutsford's Circular despatch, dated the 2nd July, 1891, and it is of vital importance that the simple Code laid down in the Circular should be understood and acted on immediately on its receipt.

12. Pages 9 and 10, A.-So long as the General Principles for the Defence of Ports, which have been laid down by the Joint Naval and Military Com- mittee on Defence, are carefully kept in view in the preparation of Local Defence Schemes, it seems scarcely necessary to reproduce, in each revision of the Schemes, the Report in which these principles were laid down in extenso. It is suggested that in future revisions of the Victoria Scheme, the guiding instructions contained in paragraphs 1 to 9 on pp. 9 and 10 may be omitted.

13. Page 10, B. Steps to be taken on the Apprehension of Hostilities with a Maritime Power. The information given under this heading, though it summarizes clearly the general action to be taken on mobilization, does not entirely cover the ground intended by the general heading of the Chapter- "Action by Staff and Departments." Fuller details with regard to this action were embodied in the Mobilization Book of 1893, and will presumably be contained, amended up to date, in Parts I and II of the new book referred to in the note on p. 15 of the Scheme. It would be convenient if these parts, as far as they relate to Staff and Departments, were bound up with the Scheme so as to form part of Chapter III, or if a summary of the arrangements were embodied in this Chapter under the headings of the different officers responsible for carrying them out, and a reference made to the Mobilization Book for furtherdetails.

14. Page 10.-The arrangements indicated on p. 10, by which the mobiliza- tion is divided into two periods, the troops required for manning permanent works and for protection against surprise only being mobilized on first appre- hension of hostilities, are in accordance with the recommendation of "the Colonial Defence Committee, contained in paragraph 2 of their Remarks, dated the 1st March, 1888, and are generally satisfactory. The number of days after the issue of orders in which " partial" and "full" mobilization ean be completed should be worked out and stated in the Scheme.

Chapter IV.—Instructions to District Commandants and Officers Commanding.

15. The enumeration and discussion of the various possible forms of attack contained in this Chapter (which should be headed "Instructions to Officers Commanding") would be more conveniently dealt with in Chapter I of the Scheme, and the modes of utilizing the personnel and materiel of the Colony to meet these attacks should follow the details of the forces and

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