FATE OF DUNTROON COLLEGE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 67, 19 March 1924, Page 9

FATE OF DUNTROON COLLEGE

A plea for the preservation of the Military College at Duntroon, in Uie Federal capital area, where numerous Australian and New Zealand officers havo received their military training, is made by the Commandant, Colonel Heritage, in a report to, the Federal Government. After explaining measures which had been adopted in reducing the running cost of the college to £40,0C0 during the past year, as compared with £59,439 the previous year, he says that, due to the reduction in the establishment of the defence- force, the classes at the date of the report numbered only 10 staff cadets, as against the 27 Australian and eight New Zealand cadets who formed the first class, which gained such a splendid record during the Great War. The college at present had no New Zealand cadets in attendance, but it was impossible to further reduce the expenditure without seriously interfering with the course of study. The record of the Royal Military College in the ten years of its existence has been a proud one, and it had graduated 251 Australian and 60 Now Zealand officers. The Australian Staff Corps, which trained and directed the Citizen Force, look,ed to it for its supplies of new officers, ;.'and it had produced officers of the high- ! est calibre. During the war 43 graduates were killed and 58 wounded; all [won golden opinions, both as able officers and accomplished gentlemen. Colonel Heritage referred to the fact that the future of the college was in doubt, and that suggestions had been mads that it should be transferred to another I site, and its present quarters at Duntroon (on the Canberra site) turned into an agricultural college, but it was felt that such a change would be a mistake. The ■ college had inculcated the finest traditions, the records of its graduates have been of outstanding merit, and the fact must be remembered that in tirnc3 of stress Duntroon and its founder were appreciated by the nation, and. as a national memorial, the body of Sir William Bridges, its founder and first commandant, killed at the Dardanelles, was entombed on tlio hillock overlooking the college. There was enshrined the spirit of the Royal Military College.