EMPIRE DEFENCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3129, 4 March 1909, Page 5

EMPIRE DEFENCE.

GENERAL STAFF SCHEME

DISCUSSED BY FEDERAL CABINET. Received March 3. 10 a.m. MELBOURNE, March 3. The Federal Cabinst discussed tne Ri'ht Hen. R. B. Hal-Jane's Imperial General Staff scheme'. While the general idea was adopted, it was ucvid.d to make Australia's participation subordinate to complete local control. Mr Fisher, Prima Minister, stated that the Government favoured every kind of interchange of officers, but wanted to safeguard itself against any Imperial control of the Commonwealth Government as regards Australia's own officers.

THE TERRITORIALS. ASSISTING THE SCHEME. Received March 3, 9.50 p.m. LONDON, March 3. The Alliance Assurance Company has announced that new clerks will be obliged to join the Territorials before engaged by the Company. AN IMPORTANT STATEMENT. Received March 3, 9.50 p.m. LONDON, March 3.

Mr R. B. Haldane, speaking at Newcastle, foreshadowed the creation of an army comparable in size to those of the great military Powers, The present reforms were merely to give effect to resolutions of the Imperial Conference, and to give proper organisation to existing citizen corps. AN AUSTRALIAN NAVY. RIDICULED BY MR G. REID. Received March 4, 12.48 a.m. SYDNEY, March 3. Mr George H. Reid, speaking on the defence question, ridiculed the establishment of an Australian Navy. He declared that there was no necessity for compulsory military training. His policy for the next ten years would be to make the forts, garrisons, and officers efficient. He would rather spend £BO,OOO on a military college than on torpedo destroyers. He woulvl have a zealous cadet movement and a universal systen of school drill and the establishment of factories for the manufacture of small arms and ammunition.

The complete text of Mr Haldane's scheme for the creation of an Imperial General Staff was issued by the Commonwealth Minister for De- \ fence on February 22nd. In a covering letter, Sir Edward Ward, Secretary of the Imperial Army Council, points out that toe proposals are a development of n-so-lutions passed at the lmptrim Conference in 1907. The paper written hy General W. G. Nicholson, chief of the British General Staff, is t-iased on the general principles embodied in Mr Haldane's speech to the colo nial Premier.* at the conference. Tne main points of General Nicholson's paper Sir Edward Ward summarises as follows:— v l) The nects&ity for the maintenance of sea supremacy, which alone can secure any military co-operation at all. (2) The desirability of a certain broad plan of military organisation tor the Empire; but not a rigid model making no allowance for local difficulties. (3) A conception of combination in which the armed forces of the EmI pire will be organised in two parts. j the first part having local defence as its function, and the second signed for service of Empire as a whole. Sir Edward says that the Army Council is well aware that the selfgoverning dominions can give no guarantee that contingents of a given strength will be forthcoming for service in any part of the Empire in the event of a great war. At the same time he thinks the feelings of loyalty and affection towards the Mother Country will operate powerfully in the future, as they oid in the. case of the South African war. The scheme outlined in General Nicholson's paper elaborates the following three essential points:

(1) All the forces of the Empire to be organised for war on the same general principles, especially as regards the system of commands and staff duties. P'or this purpose the formation of the Imperial General Staff should be proceeded with as far as the present available means permit. (2) Uniformity to be ensured in a system of training officers of the General Staff, by arranging for a uniformity of educating regimental officers from whom the selection of staff officers is to be made. This is to be secured by recognising the staff college at Camberley as the central school of military education of the Empire, and by filling at the outset to such an extent as may be approved by respective Governments of the oversea dominions, instructional appointments by Camberley I graduates so as to have uniformity in system of the selection courses; uniformity in the entrance examinations, curriculum syllabus, and teaching at the several staff colleges. (3) Uniformity in the carrying out of staff duties to be attained by encouraging graduates of the staff colleges, who aspire to holding the must important General Staff appointments, to undergo a further course of training in England or India, and by arranging for a system atic interchange of officers of the Imperial General Staff between the , various appointments throughout the Empire. In his explanation of these three essential points, General .Nicholson declares that the oversea dominions have begun fa feel themselves

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sufficiently strong to undertake more responsibility for the defence of their own homes, and to look on this, not only as a duty, but as a right. He insists that in connection with the principles governing local'defence the means should not only he sufficient to meet the most probable form of attack, but should be sufficient to hold the enemy until the naval and military forces of the Empire can be concentrated at a decisive point or p-inls.