Hamilton's Report.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 25, 21 May 1914, Page 5

Hamilton's Report.

QM AUSTRALIA'S DEFENCE SOME PRACTICAL ADVICE. IFm Pbebs Association.] Sydney, May 20. General Sir lan Hamilton's report tin the military forces of the Commonwealth are published. He lays down that the actual strength of the State consists in the aggregate striking power of its armies and fleets, which should be as inter-dependent as the forefinger and the thumb. He declares that in a militia army there is no room for a peace system divorced from war requirements, therefore during peace the services should be organised under war conditions. After remarking that'Australia's attention so far has been necessarily concentrated on training, now the time was almost ripe for consolidating the existing forces into a carefully planned instrument of war.

He condemns the centralisation of the Defence Department at Melbourne, adding: "Actually, the Australian system as it exists to-day is purely the product of peace procedure, and could not hope to carry on beyond the first few weeks of war." He advocates the separation of the business administration from the purely military, and concludes: "The whole of the regulars and threefourths of the muTtTa are sufficiently trained to take part in a modern battle, supposing that such an occasion arose the day after tc-morrow, and with two week's warning the remaining fourth of the militia, plus some twenty thousand men of the flower of the riue clubs, would be available as reinforcements." General Hamilton adds: "I mean that a large proportion of the forces have a willing spirit and actual technical skdl that would enable one man to handle them in action. How would they fare on the battlefield P Giving due weight to the moral factor that they are fighting for a country well worth defending, and whereof they have local knowledge, they would need to be in a majority of at least two to one to fight a pitched battle with picked troops from overseas on equal terms." The comparative lack of discipline and cohesion showing up strongly where large forces are involved is his reason for allowing so large a margin of superiority to the invading forces.

"IF THE EMPIRE UNDERSTOOD." APPEAL TO GOOD SENSE TO PULL THE BUSINESS THROUGH. ~l7* ~ - a v » t.' B.i. (Received 8.45 a.a.m) Sydney, May 21. Dealing with compulsory training, General Hamilton says there was no use pretending that cadet training had already justified itself as a full substitute for prolonged adult-recruit training. Insufficient allowances were made by critics for difficulties inevitable in the inauguration of an original scheme, but the difficulties would grow less each year. If the Empire understood the full significance of the Australian experiment, prayers would continually be offered for its success, but since most people in the Northern Hemisphere had been carefully misinformed by interested fanatics, Australians would have to trust to their own good sense to pull the business through. With courage and perseverance they may yet be able to boast that they had showed the way to great military powers to raise powerful armies with a minimum tax on the i priceless time of the adult male worker. The Australian soldier was very amenable to discipline. The best assets of the army to-day are the soldier-like spirit, intelligence, arid wiry frames of the rank and file. General Hamilton strongly advocates the formation and development of military aviation, and suggests a pension scheme for the permanent forces.