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the harbour entrances or on the town and its vicinity from the Singapore Roads and from the land side by troops put on shore out of range of the heavy armament. The O.C.R.A. and C.R.E. look upon Fort Palmer, which mounts the heaviest guns in the present No. II Section, as having for its main function co-operation in the defence of the Eastern Harbour entrance rather than in the defence of Singapore Roads. They would do away with the present Section II and place Fort Palmer, and apparently also Fort Tanjong Katong, while retained, under the Fire Commander at Serapong in Section I, and they would add Fort Canning, of which the coast armament is unimportant, to Section III, though they consider that Fort Palmer in Section. I should still look to Fort Canning for infantry support if seriously threatened. The G.O.C. also would place Fort Palmer under the Fire Commander at Serapong when position-finding has been established at the station. It is not clear how position- finding affects the question of sectional organization. On the other hand the communi- cations for purposes of artillery command are intimately bound up with this question, and as the Committee are informed that the War Office is desirous of laying these communications at once, it is necessary that the organization should now be finally settled.

The Colonial Defence Committee are loth to go back on their former recom- mendations on which the present revision of the Scheme has been drawn up with much care and elaboration. At the same time they are more loth to override opinions derived from complete local knowledge and consideration of the problem on the spot. They fully see the force of the arguments for placing Fort Palmer under the Fire Commander at Fort Serapong and for the abolition of Section II of the defence which this to some extent involves. They note, however, that the proposal to place this fort in Section I with regard to attack from the sea and in Section III with regard to attack from troops landed shows that any sectional organization such as they had proposed is difficult of application at Singapore, and this is further exemplified by the arrangements for reinforcing one section from another given in paragraph 5 on p. 8 of the Scheme.

Under these circumstances it appears to the Committee that the division of Singapore into sections for defence may be abandoned, and they suggest that this might be done in the next revision of the Scheme. The lines of communication for artillery command, now about to be laid, would then proceed direct from the head- quarters of the General Officer Commanding at Tulok Blangah to Fire Commanders at Siloso and Serapong, and from these Fire Commanders to Battery Commanders at the various works. The Battery Commander at Serapong would act as Fire Commander for that part of the fire of his guns which cannot conveniently be. directed from Serapong.

4. Page 2, paragraph 7, page 3, Sub-Inclosure 3.--The suggestion of the Colonial Defence Committee, contained in paragraph 11 of their Remarks, No. 145 R, to the effect that the Singapore Artillery Volunteers might be utilized to man the field guns, appears not to have been fully understood. It was not intended that the Volunteers should undertake new duties in addition to those-not altogether or even mainly of an artillery nature-which they already perform, but that they should be entirely employed in working the light guns which form an important factor in the defence, and which cannot, as already pointed out by the Committee in the Remarks above quoted, be satisfactorily left in the hands of untrained infantry. In their Memorandum No. 83 M, dated the 10th November, 1896, the Committee have again called attention to what appears to them to be waste of power in the allocation of the Volunteer corps to various miscellaneous duties.

DEFENCE SCHEME.

Chapter I-Strategic Considerations.

5. Page 7, paragraph 1.-It is considered that the description of the strategic conditions of Singapore, as given in this paragraph, might advantageously be expanded as follows, so as to be of greater assistance, in a first perusal of the Scheme :-

"Singapore is in a position of great military and commercial importance guarding the southern end of the Straits of Malacca, the main entrance to the Indian Ocean from the eastward, and in some manner controlling the Straits of Sunda, 450 miles distant. It is a base for the ships of Her Majesty's navy, and is favourably placed for observing the French port of Saigon.

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