DOMINION ARMIES

Evening Star, Issue 16625, 7 January 1918, Page 8

DOMINION ARMIES

AUSTRALIA'S FIGURES.

The Federal Minister of Defence made a statement in Melbourne the other day concerning Australia's contributions to the armed forces of the Empire. He .said the first official statement had given the number of troops sent oversea as 303,000 up to June 1, 1917. But these figures had been corrected. A " carefully audited" statement showed that the number of men actu-. ally sent from Australia up to October 30, 1917, was 298,000. It appeared that " previously additions had been made to the official lists which were afterwards found to be unwarranted; often men did not embark, though it was assumed that they had done so.

The Director of Recruiting (Senator Mackinnon) stated last week that the number of men who enlisted voluntarily in Australia during 1917 had been about 47,000. This total appears to have included a proportion of medically unfit men. During the first 11 months of 1917 New South Wales supplied 67 per cent, of her quota of reinforcements, Victoria 50 per cent, of the quota, and Queensland 39 per cent. The number of men sent overseas by Canada up to June 20 last was stated officially to have been 329,943. This figure did not represent fully the Canadian effort, since the senior Dominion found it necessary until quite recently to retain n, certain number of trained troops, in view of the threat of raids by Germans and other anti-British elements from the United States. It is estimated that between June and December 50,000 men went from Canada and about 15,000 from Australia.