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possible to reduce the detachments told off to other guns which in most instances appear to be in excess of requirements. In any event, every effort should be made to reduce the large number of infantry soldiers, 238, detached from their own corps, and from their proper work to carry out artillery duties. Similarly, a reduction in the number of the infantry on guard, 59, and of the infantry employed men, 88, should be attempted. With the present distribution only a small proportion of its strength is available from the British battalion for proper infantry work, and under these circumstances the assumption contained in (D) 2, on p. 23 of the Scheme, viz., that a small force of the enemy might land and successfully advance from Passir Panjang may be correct. Such action by an enemy would certainly not be possible if a force of, at least, 400 men were kept in a central position ready to march to the attack of an enemy wherever he might have landed, or to reinforce small detachments occupying as advanced posts, Blakan Mati Island, Alexandra Position, Fort Canning, and, while it is retained, Tanjong Katong. It should be possible, by confining artillery and infantry to their proper duties, and by not attempting to occupy from the outset a long land position by men in works, to establish a small central force and outposts as above as soon as the Penang Companies arrive. On the arrival of the Malay States Guides the central force and outposts could all be strengthened, and if the recom- mendation of the Committee, contained in their Memorandum No. 98 M of the 5th April, 1897, as to the increase of the establishment of the Guides is carried out, the reasonable requirements of the defence as regards garrison will, in their opinion, be fully met. The above suggestion that the infantry should be distributed between a main force in a central position, and detachments at various advanced posts, is not incompatible with the proposal in the Scheme to defend the stores and coal on the wharves and the docks from the attack of troops landed, by the occupation of works on the Alexandra and Mount Faber Positions, but such occupation should only take place when a more active defence had become impossible on account of considerable numerical superiority of the enemy.

9. Pages 13 to 21, Tables B (i) to B (ii).-The arrangement by which an infantry officer is told off to accompany the infantry details allotted for artillery purposes to the various forts seems open to the objection that should this officer be senior to the Battery Commander, he would be in a somewhat anomalous position. The Battery Commander receives his orders direct from the Fire Commander, and the presence of a Senior Officer in the fort belonging to another arm would tend to confuse questions of command. It is considered that it would be better if the infantrymen told off for purely artillery purposes were handed over, for the time they are in the fort, entirely to the R.A. The detachments at present told off to Serapong and Connaught are sixteen and twenty men respectively, each under charge of an infantry subaltern, which, at any rate, appears unnecessary. The only fort for which an infantry officer seems to be at present required is Passir Panjang, where one is told off to command the two machine-guns for Berlayer Point.

The statement on p. 109 of the Scheme, under the heading, "Command of Detachments," reads as if the position of the Battery Commander as in direct com- mand of the infantry told off to assist the artillery was correctly appreciated.

10. Pages 13 to 21, Tables B (i) and B (iii); pages 103 and 104 Distribution of Royal Artillery.-These various Tables do not correspond with regard to the distri- bution of R.A. officers. Exclusive of the O.C.R.A. on the staff of the Fortress Commander, and of the Divisional Adjutant, who it is presumably intended should be with the O.C.R.A., there are five officers on the establishment of each of the two R.A. Companies, and two with the Singapore Company-twelve in all. Of these, one Major is told off as Section Commander, leaving eleven officers for R.A. posts. In Table B (i) only ten of these are accounted for. Table B (ii) accounts for thirteen in all, and gives to Fort Connaught two instead of one R.A. officer, as in B (i). The Tables on pp. 103 and 104 only show nine R.A. officers, and allot one to Fort Siloso, instead of two as in B (i) and B (iii). The various Tables should be corrected to agree.

Chapter III.-Action by Staff and Departments.

11. Page 27.-The notification that will be sent to the Governor, instructing him to put the Defence Scheme partially or wholly into force, will be in the form commu- nicated in Lord Knutsford's Circular despatch, dated the 2nd July, 1891, and a specific

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