AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXIII, Issue 12584, 3 October 1908, Page 5

AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE.

The Times' Opinion

Press Association.—Telegraph. — Copyrig'^' .

Received October 2, 10.35 p.m

LONDON, October 2.

The Times, eulogising Mr Ewing's Bill providing for compulsory military '.raining, says the Australian, people are the first community in the Empire to grapple seriously with the duty of military training on a national scale. They will reap au ample reward in national security, only they may never have to fight, because the better they are- trained the smaller their risk. But. apart from that, Mr. Ewing's measure will greatly strengthen the Federal idea, namely, a sense of citizenship in a great Commonwealth, and prove, if properly administered, potent to evoke and organise Australian patriotism as distinguished from the self-assertion of Victoria or Queensland or New So nth Wales.