ARMY TRAINING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27232, 8 November 1949, Page 7

ARMY TRAINING

Compulsory Service In

Australia

Planning By Opposition Rec. 8 p.m. SYDNEY. Nov. 6. If the Chifley Government is defeated at the December elections, says the Canberra correspondent of the Sunday Herald, the Liberal and Country Party coalition, headed by Mr Menzies and Mr Fadden, will introduce compulsory military service in Australia. ~ .. , ~ The correspondent adds that Mr Menzies and Mr Fadden have adopted an expert report presented by the Liberal Party’s Defence Policy Committee, of which General Sir Thomas Blarney is a member. The scheme includes selective service. six months’ continuous compulsory training, a volunteer militia force to supplement the compulsory trainees and a small regular force. The Menzies-Fadden defence policy provides for the scrapping of the Guffey Government’s five-year defence plan, which General Blarney has described as a “costly and useless piece of window dressing.” The four main points remaining would be: (1) Conclusion of a Pacific pact with the United States. (2) Development 6f Australia as a main support area for the British Commonwealth in the Pacific. (3) A joint Anglo-Australian defence, research project in South Australia. (4) A hydro-electric scheme in the Snowy Mountains.