EMPIRE DEFENCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9556, 31 July 1909, Page 5

EMPIRE DEFENCE.

A TERRITORIAL RESERVE.

MR HALDANE'S SCHEME.

Uni» a Press Association—By Electric Telegraph Copyrigut. Received July 30, 9.20 a.m. LONDON, July 29.

Mr Haldane's scheme for creating a Territorial Reserve force from time-expired soldiers and others creates a reserve consisting of three classes secondly, a technical corps, consisting of medical men, engineers, motorists, aviators, and veterinary surgeons; thirdly, veterans, consisting of officers and men who have served in any military forces The country organisations are to be asked to register the names. It is anticipated that the reservists will number altogether a hundred thousand, making tne total strength of the Territorial Army ±our hundred thousand. AN IMPORTANT SPEECH;. Received July 30, 10.40 p.m. LONDON, July 30.

In Committee of Supply in the House of Commons on the Navy and Army Estimates, the Hon. H. H. Asquith, in the course of an important speech, describing the working of the Defence Committee, said that when Mr A. J. Balfour formed it seven years ago considerable doubt and some apprehension was expressed as to whether it could be adopted to our ordinary administrative machinery, and particularly in regard]! to maintenance of separate responsibility in the War Office and the Admiralty. Fur himself he desired to say at once that having during the past four years worked in intimate and continuous relations with the Defence Committee, he regarded it besides as a valuable and indispensible part of the administrative organisation. It was an advisory, not an executive committee. Thus, while Cabinet must always ba responsible for the national policy and the War Office, the Admiralty must always be responsible for the execution of the policy so determined upon. The Defence Committee's functions arose owing to the necessity felt in all great countries—in none so pressingly I as in Britain—for co-ordination in the work of the Army and Navy, and it j was the business of the Defence Committee to study the best provision from time to time of the military and naval requirements of the Empire as a whole, hence it must bs flexiole acd be empowered to add to it ad Hoc. Received July 30. 9.35 p.m. LONDON, July 30. Mr R. B. Haldane participated in yesterday's discussion at the Defence Conference, w l iich was chiefly confined to a mamoranda relating to the Empire's military defence and its future organisation. A committee of experts was appointed to study details. Probably a similar procedure will be adopted in connection with naval defence when the Conference rc-assembles on Tu2sday. Receive-.! July 30, 11.20 p.m. LONDON, July 30. Mr Asquith, continuing his speech, said he hopsd that before the representatives of the Dominions left the country an opportunity would occur of inviting some of them to participate in meeting the Defence Committee and consider some of the problems affecting them equally wth us. The Committee would thus include representative men from all parts of the Enpire. A portian of the Committee's work was confidential, but he might say it included exhaustive inquiries in the first instance by sub-committees on such subjects as military needs of the Empire, and in respect to the recent changes in army organisation. The Government also had a Colonial Defence Cjmmittee, which for a long time past had been watching the colonial aspects of Imperial defence.