^74 



REVIEW OF REVIEWS. 



yofvni})cr 1 1913. 



age of 26 Australian citizens will be 

 really free to write and say what they 

 will. 



As every trainee, through the proper 

 channels, h is the right to appeal to the 

 Military Board, that, and not the Com- 

 pany Commander, is the final judge 

 of efficiency, and Provest Marshals, 

 whose functions are similar to those 

 •of the truant officers under the Edu- 

 cation Act, are being appointed. It 

 is their duty to ascertain why drills are 

 not attended, and so on and so forth. 

 This relieves the area officer, and should 

 result m fewer mistakes being made. 



The notable drop in the registration 

 during the last three years is explained 

 by the fact that in igi i many youths 

 ■over 14 registered, and the same hap- 

 pened in 191 2, but this year all save 

 those under fourteen had been accounted 

 for, hence the difference of 8000. This 

 would account for some of the falling 

 •off, but hardly for all of it. 



PROSECUTIONS. 



It has also been pointed out to me that 

 I was wrong in stating that the propor- 

 tion of prosecutions under the Defence 

 Act is no higher than under the Educa- 

 tion Acts. This assertion has been so au- 

 thoritatively made that I did not verify 

 it. It is difficult to obtain figures for all 

 the States, and the number of school at- 

 tendances required varies greatly in 

 each. In Victoria the law is far stricter 

 than in N.S.W., for instance. So if we 

 take the Victorian figures, the percent- 

 age will be higher than for the rest of 

 the Commonwealth. The number of 

 children who attended State schools in 

 Victoria during 1911-12 was 205,253; 

 the total number of prosecutions under 

 the compulsory attendance clause was 

 7212, which is 3.51 per cent. It is true 

 about half of the scholars are girls, but 

 as about half of the delinquents are 

 girls, too, the percentage is probably 

 right. 



In the citizen forces and senior cadets 

 the number of prosecutions for various 

 offences for the nine months, ist Jan- 



uary to 30th September, 191 3, were 8236. 

 Assuming the same proportion for the 

 remaining three months of the )'ear, we 

 get a total of 10,981 prosecutions for 

 the 12 months. The number liable for 

 training in the senior cadets and citizen 

 forces is 124,849. The percentage of 

 prosecutions is, therefore, 8.79, as 

 against 3.51 under the Victorian Educa- 

 tion Act. 



It is estimated that a large number of 

 the prosecutions under the Defence Act 

 are against individuals who have already 

 been dealt with for failure to render 

 personal service during the year. As, 

 however, duplication also exists in the 

 prosecutions under the Education Act, 

 it is probably fair to take the figures as 

 they stand for purposes of comparison, 

 especially as the Victorian Education 

 Act, as already pointed out, is a strin- 

 gent one. It would seem, therefore, that . 

 the prosecutions under the Defence Act 

 exceed those under the Education Act by 

 5.28 per cent. 



IS THE DEFENCE EXPENDITURE 

 JUSTIFIED ? 



In summing-up the financial position 

 of the Defence Scheme, we find that 

 Australia, three years after the inception 

 of universal service, is spending almost 

 £'4,000,000 on the land forces, which / 

 were not supposed to cost her ;{^ 1,884,000 

 until 191 7. If the rate of increase, due 

 only to the beginning of the training of ■ 

 new quotas of men continues, she will be i 

 spending ^5,000,000 in 1920. The present ' 

 Budget has absorbed all the surplus of > 

 the last three years. Next year there will / 

 be a deficit of four or five millions to 

 meet. Under these circumstances is Aus- 

 tralia justiffed in permitting this huge 

 additional expenditure beyond what she 

 originally bargained for ? Ought she, 

 in the attempt to secure the 80,000 

 trained men, demanded by the Kitchener 

 programme, to cripple herself by pay- 

 ing more per head on armaments than 

 any other country in the world ? Every 

 unprejudiced man cannot but come to 

 the conclusion that she ought to cut her 

 coat according to her cloth. 



