EMPIRE FORCES.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 903, 24 August 1910, Page 5

EMPIRE FORCES.

AUSTRALIA'S CITIZEN ARMY. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. Melbourne, August 23. Senator Pearce, Federal Minister for Defence, says that in 1918 there will, be ia Australia a hundred thousand senior cadets, one hundred and fourteen thousand citizen soldiers, and thirteen tkousond reserves.

CANADIANS- TO .TRAIN AT 'ALDER- • SHOT. Ottawa, August 22. . The' Oceanic Steam ' Navigation Company's steamer Megantic has among her passengers six hundred and twenty officers and men of the Queen's Own Uegiment, who are going from Canada to Aldershot for training, the commanding officer of the regiment, Sir Henry 11. Pellatt, paying their expenses. '

AUSTRALIAN CADETS ABROAD. Ottawa, August 22. The Australian cadets who recently toured England were warmly welcomed and entertained at Montreal. . Later, .they started for New, York and Washington, and will subsequently go on to Toronto and Vancouver.

Describing the arrival in London of the 24 Australian ■ Mounted Cadets under Lieutenant Armstrong (Australian Light Horse) the "Morning Post" said:— "Drawn up in lino on the Victoria Station platform these Australian cadets were a hearteriihg sight as proofs of what our race can produce in the overseas Dominions. The average ago .of the boys was 1G; but iooking at their big frames, their keen, deep-set eyes, their lean, determined faces, no general would refuse them a place in the fighting line among men. Thoy-are mounted cadets', in training to become, later on, Light Horse or Mounted Infantry, and their riding gear showed off their wiry figures well, very surprising indeed to the English eye was the size of these lads; ono IS was nearly 6ft. in height and weighed 12st. More-surprising still was their''grownup' look; there was not'a 'soft' face in the 24, though there were mony bright ones, and probably the whole team would not pan out a dozen pounds of superfluous flesh."

. CANADA'S NEW RIFLE. (Rec. August 23, 8.30 p.m.) Fremantle, August 23. A number of tho Australian riflemen who competed at the Bisley meeting are passengers by the.Omrah, which has arrived hero from London. They state tha.t the Canadian competitors in the Ross rifle had a superior weapon. The Ross rifle; has a heavier barrel and a quicker action than the Lee Enfield.

Tho ■ Ross nfle is the invention of Sir Charles' Ross and, has been adopted by the local forces of Canada in place of the Lee-Enfield. It has a calibre of .280, and therefore somewhat less than the British General Service weapon. With it is used ammunition carrying a pointed bullet weighing 180 grains.