EMPIRE DEFENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15476, 6 December 1913, Page 4

EMPIRE DEFENCE.

SIR lAN HAMILTON'S TO'JR.

VISIT TO AUSTRALASIA.

[from ofr own correspondent.]

London, October 29. The Inspector-General of the Overseas Forces, General Sir lan Hamilton, accompanied by his staff officers, General G. F. Ellison and Major \V. R. N. Madocks, has returned to England from Canada, where he has been reporting on the military institutions of that Dominion. Sir lan Hamilton, with General Ellison and Major Ashmore, will leave London shortly for the Mediterranean, sailing thence for Australia and New Zealand. It is anticipated that they will reach the latter country in April.

In view, therefore, of the approaching tour of Australasia, the report on Canada, prepared by Sir lan Hamilton, will be read with interest, many of its recommendations being of general application throughout the Empire. Canada has based her military organisation entirely on the British model. She possesses a small permanent force of professional soldiers corresponding to the regular army at Home, as well as a volunteer citizen force, styled the active militia, which is similar in all essentials to the territorial force. Under the Militia Acts of both countries the whole manhood of the nation is theoretically available for military service. In Canada these potential but hitherto unorganised soldiers, nearly 1.000,000 in number, form the reserve militia.

Sir lan Hamilton, while recognising the importance of home defence, lavs much stress on the necessity for Imperial cooperation. On this subject he writes:— "The very existence of that vast organism, Greater Britain, depends on its sea power, coupled with the . übiquity of its land forces. ... I take it as an axiom then that every State in the Empire is bound in honour, after looking to its own immediate safety, to consider how it may best take its share in the general burden of responsibility." He refers to the late Homer Lea's thesis that " In an Empire so constituted as that of the British, an army oi home defence becomes an army of Imperial destruction." " South Africa," he continues, " proved up to the hilt the extravagance and weakness of improvised methods. It proved the necessity of an Imperial .instrument for war of which the parts, gathered from all quarters of the globe, would readily tit together an-1 work without friction from the start." Basing his argument on contentions such as these lie exhorts the Canadians not to neglect their small per manent force. He urges its complete assimilation to the Imperial pattern so as to render possible in the near future an interchange of British and Canadian units for Imperial work. In his opinion "such an interchange would mark an epoch in the evolution of Imperial organisation worth a wilderness of speeches and flags. Memories of a time when Canada- was the I most popular station to which a British I regiment could be sent would be most happily revived. The presence of a Canadian regiment in London, Delhi, or Cairo would stir the imagination not only of the five nations themselves, but of the whole outside world."

So long as the dangers which threaten the Dominion remain what they now are Sir lan Hamilton does not consider universal manhood training in peace to be necessary in Canada, but -he insists strongly on the expediency of developing the training of boys to arms. " Adequate boy training, plus scientific organisation based on citizen service is," he says, "the price that every part of the' Empire should pay for insurance." Moreover, he makes it clear that, in his opinion, such a price is a bare minimum, and that, wherever in the Empire more serious dangers threaten, a much higher insurance premium should be paid. For instance, he warns the Canadians that should the dangers which threaten them increase in the future, they must be prepared to shoulder a much heavier military burden than at present. The report concludes with these words: "Let them (the Canadians) keep a close eye upon the preparation of potential foes and see to it that the state' of readiness of their reserve militia shall always outstrip by a day at least the time wherein any foreign power could place a powerful army on Canadian soil."