FEWER REGIMENTS

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 122, 26 May 1930, Page 11

FEWER REGIMENTS

AUSTRALIAN ARMY

HALF-MILLION CUT

In. contributing its share of the £500,000 cut to be made in the Defence Estimates for tho next financial year, tho Australian Army will suffer drastic reductions.

Although the present organisation will be retained, the units forming the army nucleus will be considerably reduced.

The whole of the fifteen ■ infantry brigades will be raised in future on the basis of three battalions to a brigade, instead of four. This will mean that fifteen battalions will cease to be maintained, but each will be linked with an-, other unit in the same brigade. Apart from this, four Light Horse regiments will no longer be maintained under tho 1930-31 programme.

In announcing these reductions, the Adjutant-General (General Dodds) said that ho hoped to save £25,000 without affecting the actual organisation of the army or impairing its efficiency. . He was unable to indicate what would become of the adjutants, sergeants-major, and others on the permanent staff whoso services would no longer be required.

He knew nothing of the proposed rationing scheme which the Secretary for Defence (Mr. Shepherd) stated, iv Canberra was being considered. However, his purely personal view as a soldier was that rationing would be' preferable to dismissing a largo number of men. EFFICIENCY UNAFFECTED. Already, General Dodds explained, six infantry battalions of six separate brigades and two Light Horse regiments had ceased to be maintained as a result of the reductions for the present financial year. They had been amalgamated with other units under the same command, Under the latest scheme a battalion from each of tho remaining nine brigades and two Light Horse regiments — one in South Australia and ono in Queensland —would amalgamate with other units. Instead of requiring two adjutants and eight or nine sergeantsmajor for each of the battalions to bo linked, only one adjutant and four or five sergeants-major would be necessary. Trainees would continue training at the same centres. They would not notice the change.

"I am prepared to give a personal guarantee," said General Dodds, "that the reductions will not affect the efficiency or effective organisation of the army, nor will they interfere to any great extent with our mobilisation plans. Nothing will be done to hamper or destroy the militia scheme. I am confident that funds will be available for their pay, camps, and general training.''