POLICY OF DRIFT

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 116, 13 November 1923, Page 7

POLICY OF DRIFT

AUSTRALIA'S DEFENCES

UNEQUAL TO SINGLE BATTLE

SIR JOHN AIONASH SPEAKS OUT,

(UNITBD VRE6S ASSOCIATION. COPIRIOIIT.)

(Received 12th November, noon.)

"^SYDNEY, This Day.

General Sir John Monash, remarking that he had severed his connection with the Australian Defence Force, as there was no room for him in the present system, warned the authorities against th* policy of drift.

He said that the Air Force was a sham and that the artillery would last only a fsw hours. Australia was unable to maintain a battle for a full day. She had no Mill bombs;,ahd lie had not Been a tank in Australia. Though he should be peppered for making such statements, ho wanted frankly to tell the people of the position, so that Australia should iiot continue a policy of unpreparedness. Sir John Monash added that lots of people in these days were talking on the idea that there was going to be no more war, that we have-a League of Nations, and such shibboleths. "Was there any man who read history who believed in such a thing? Of course, human nature was evolving better things arid sooner or later we should find palliatives and make war rarer, perhaps,' but that we should ever "Succeed in preventing war he was one of those who did not believe.

He was a keen and enthusiastic supporter of the League of Nations, but jit was going too far to say that because it had potentialities, the people of Australia need not bother any further. Such a view was like deciding that we should have no more burglaries and dismissing the police. Referring to the steadily diminishing defence vote, he said: "We are not merely destroying the Defence Force, but we are destroying our means of re-creating it. We should accept the responsibility for training a sufficient and adequate nucleus of trained commanders and staffs. Instead of that they are being reduced every day."