The Washington herald., 1915-10-26
By r. ID. JOHNS.

Military preparedness will be on
higher plane in the United states
than 1t has been in Australia II this
country secures anything like 100000
soldiers under the proposed CONT
mental army scheme. After expert
menting ten years with the continent
tai army policy based on voluntary
enIistments, Australia, upon the ad-
vice of Lord Kitchener, adopted uni
versal training and is now able to
put a larger percentage of its mill
tary strength in the field than any
country in the world.
A report to the War College on the
Australian system of national de-
tense, states that the first effort to-
ward securing trained citizen soldiers
in Australia was the defense act or
1908. This was based on volunteer
enlistments and was on the general
line of the proposed continental army
which the Secretary of War has men
toned in his preliminary announce
ments and has been submitted to the
President 1t was amended in 1904
and again in 1905, but Sir Thomas
Ewing. minister for defense. said in
1908 that the system OF defense un-
der volunteer enlistments did not
give Australia sufficient members in
its citizen forces in proportion to the
expenditure involved. that the stand
ard of training was very unequal and
that the excessive proportion OF the
troops were enrolled for very short
service and resigned before attaining
sufficient standard of proficiency"
Despite the fact that Australia's
citizen soldiers under the volunteer
system of enlistment were poorly
trained and inefficient, the average
cost per year for adult soldiers under
the old system was thirty-two pounds
against sixteen pounds for the univer-
sal military training system. AL
though Australia has only 2s5.o0O
males between the ages OF IS and IS
years. II has 100000 senior cadets or
PARTIAL ytrained soldiers and uz.00O
citizen soldiers. On this basis the
trained soldiers in the United States
would be between 5000 900 and TO-.
0O0, 900, at less than half the cost per
soldier than by the present policy.
II Australian history repeats itself in
the United States. the continental army
scheme will eventually bring about uni
versal training. Conditions In the United
States at present are strikingly similar
to those I'm Australia when the first ma
tional defense act was passed in 1903.
Naval Constructor ]. A. Furer. U. S.
n, who had charge of the raising of the
Inflated submarine F4. has been ordered
to Washington to mack a verbal report
TO the Secretary OF the Navy. The rais-
ing Of the F-4 from a depth of 800 feet
Is REGARDED as one Of the most brilliant
achievements of the American navy. 1t
is the first time that a submarine which
has sunk to anything like 100 feet has
been raised
England. France and Germany have
made unsuccessful attempts to raise the
submarines from a depth of less than 100
feet. but the F-4 was over 800 feet below
the surface when Constructor Furer was
assigned to the task OF raising her. 1t
was so far outside of the Honolulu Har-
Dor that rough seas continually inter-
fered with the work OF bringing the sub
marine to the surface, and IL was a task
of five or six weeks.
The success Of raising the F-4 was
due largely to the new system of deep
diving which has been developed after
about a years experiment In the navy.
with the new system on the coast Of
Rhode Island. Gunner George d. Stillson
made a worlds record in deep diving.
reaching a depth Of over 800 feet When
the F-4 was wrecked Gunner Stillson and
the crew of deep divers were sent across
the continent and the Pacific Ocean to
Honolulu. where under the direction Of