CAB9-1_PT2 — Page 99

[This Document is the Property of Her Britannic Majesty's Government.] Page 99 of 290

Printed for the use of the Colonial Office. August 17, 1897.

SECRET.

No. 168 R.

JAMAICA.

JAMAICA.

C.O.

No. 800. Secret.

RE

Defence Scheme revised to January, 1897.

*

Remarks by the Colonial Defence Committee.

1. THE sketch map of Kingston Harbour, which accompanied the present Revision of the Defence Scheme, but has not been reproduced, can hardly have been intended to meet the requirements of the Committee as laid down in paragraph 31 of their Remarks dated the 31st December, 1895. In its place reprints of a former small scale-map and of the Admiralty Chart of Kingston Harbour have been bound up with the Scheme, but they do not illustrate it very satisfactorily, and a map on a scale of 2 inches to a mile, prepared as formerly suggested by the Committee, should be sent with the next revision.

CHAPTER I.-Strategic Considerations.

2. Page 7, paragraph 1.-This paragraph might be amplified with advantage. The distance of Port Royal from the nearest United States, French, and Spanish bases might be given so as to make clear the strategic situation, and the distances from Kingston of the chief landing places, other than those referred to, might be stated so as to make it plain why special measures to meet an attack of this nature need not be seriously considered.

3. Page 7, paragraph 6.-This is too strongly worded, and looks as if it were intended as a special plea for armament to cover the water east of Plum Point. Bombardment from a cruiser, remote from its base and anxious for its own safety, is not greatly to be feared, and to say that because there is a joint in the harness of defence the whole panoply is useless is a regrettable exaggeration. At the same time the Committee consider that the High Angle Fire Battery which has been under discussion for some years, and which has been approved for a new site near the Wind- ward Road, would meet the danger anticipated in the Scheme, and they think it necessary to draw the attention of the War Office to the desirability of constructing this work at an early date.

4. Page 8, paragraph 8.-This will require modification in accordance with para- graph 8 of these Remarks.

5. Page 8, paragraph 10.-The advantage to be derived by the defence from the Local Rifle Associations is not apparent, especially as no organization for their em-

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