IMPERIAL DEFENCE

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVIII, Issue 90, 18 April 1914, Page 2

IMPERIAL DEFENCE

THE ARMED! FORCES OF THE EMPIRE. ... 1When spm© time ago Lord Haldan enumerated the many army corps o which {the Imperial Army of th future was to be composed, and Lor< Nicholson, translating the late Wa Minister's prophecy into figures spoke of a force of .1,200,000 armei men, trained and partially trained some of us were inclined to thin] that' the atmosphere of the Wa; Office engendered a (taste for romance (remarks the Broad Arrow). Bu from statistics which have been pub lished, founded on tables prepared a Home and abroad, it appears that.th establishment of the forces of th'i Empire actually exceeds Lord Nichol son's total estimate, and that it ii now set down at- 1,337,851 of al ranks, with 156,040 horses. As was however, t only to be expected, th< fully trained men are in the minority and, although the fact is not empha sised, the partially trained men ar< ncffc only the. more numerous, buthere are no means of gauging th< standard of training these "hay* reached, and there is nothing t( allow us to form any judgment as t( Avhere the partially trained man maj be said to shade off into the man wh( has had no training at all, and hoM many of him there may be. But ii numbers alone may be considered satisfactory,' then is the Empire ir fairly good case. A force recently added to the establishment is the Indian Army Reserve, the growth oi which, we may hope, will be carefully and .]ealoiif.ly watched, since for manj reasons the maintenance of a reallj largo reserve for rthat army is nol desirable or judicious.' Interesting indeed, to note are' the establishments of the armies of Greater Kntain—Canada, Australia, -Ne\i /iwilaud, and South Africa—and tr Kf-p.how each is modelling its force* upon the pattern of those of the iVi.other Country, so that they may be able, automatically as it were, tc take their places in the Imperial defence line and become available at nr>ed for the purposes of Imperial cooperarfcion. PUBLICATION OF WAR NEWS. Th© cliscHssioTi on tlie publication of war news which took place recently alter-the reading of a paper at the i-.oyal Lmtecl Service Institution, wa« very important. Tlie British public vail certainly fret, possibly become violent, if all news, in war ttimc is withheld, but they will have to get accustomed to being told only that v.'lucn tho authorities are convinced pa-nnot be of use to our enemies On occasions this will mean the withholding O f {11l news- - Tho e(]itoi , Qf the Morning Post, who read the paper

suggested as a solution that a joint committee of newspaper, men and staff officers of the Army and Navy should prepare daily the statements which could be allowed to appear in the press. The public'would thus feel assured that they were being allowed |to know every thing it was in any way possible to make known without the interests of the country being jeopardised. Drastic suppression of all news would lead to a belief that things were going very wrong indeed. It is evident that the only way in which the matter can be: satisfactorily settled is by close and honorable cooperation between the press and the Government departments concerned. To do away with the idea that there • c ally intention of muzzling the press from imworthy motives an assurance S be given that no communication from a duly accredited representative $ a paper would be held back when it could no longer do any harm to tne country : by-^being published. At the same time, this would no, pieclude influence being brought to bear to induce editors not to publish communications which it could be pointed out were untrue or unfair criticism. IThe main thing to realise is that publication of news must be restricted and that the thirst ot the public for news cannot be quenched at the expense of doing possible harm to the country.