No one who came into contact, as friend or foe, with the Australian soldier during the last war would dispute his efficiency. The Australian soldier is as efficient today, he is the same kind of man, from the same hard school, organized in the same way. But he has, in addition, the great, military tradition won by the previous generation on Gallipoli, in France, and in Palestine.
The enemies of the British Empire saw before the outbreak of the last war that the British peoples were degenerate and that war would shatter the unity of the Empire. Events proved otherwise, The same wishful thinking occurred in 1939 as in 1914. Again they have been proved wrong, and the Dominions are standing once more by the side of Great Britain and have mobilized their manhood and material resources in aid of the common cause, This great effort is purely voluntary. Each Dominion enjoys the widest measure of freedom, each is free to go its own way, but Great Britain and the Dominions are united today just because the freedom which they hold dear is menaced by aggression.
If an enemy were able to overcome the formidable opposition of the British and Australian movies and invade Australia, he would have to dispose of a fully trained army of 250,000 men fighting on its own soil and with the material resources of this continent at their disposal. Australians may never be called upon to fight on their own soil. If they are, they are fully prepared and have no reason to fear the result.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.