The Secretary to the Department of Defence has forwarded for advice the following memorandum:

I am directed to ask the favour of advice upon the following matters:

2. The present remount services are carried out by the Australian Army Service Corps which is a corps of the Permanent Forces and a combatant corps. Under these circumstances in view of section 148 of the Defence Act only persons who are graduates of the Royal Military College or warrant and non-commissioned officers of the Permanent Forces may be appointed officers for duty with the Remount Section of the Army Service Corps. Neither of these sources are suitable for the supply of officers for remount duties and it is not desirable that the remount services should be performed by persons employed under section 63 of the Act in a civilian capacity.
3. The third proviso to section 148 mentioned provides a much wider field for the selection of suitable officers provided that the appointments are made to non-combatant branches of the Permanent Forces such as Medical Veterinary and Survey Branches.
4. It is proposed to separate the Remount Section from the Army Service Corps and establish a remount department as a non-combatant corps.
5. Section 63 (1) (dc) authorises the establishment of horse depots and farms and breeding stations.
6. Section 31 (2) prohibits except in time of war the maintenance of Permanent Military Forces except for Administrative and Instructional Staffs including the Army Service Corps among others.
7. As the Remount Section is at present a branch of the Australian Army Service Corps it would appear that the maintenance of Permanent Forces for remount work is authorised by sub-section 2 of section 31 of the Act irrespective of whether the duties are combatant or non-combatant.
8. The Remount Section is charged with the duties of the breeding and training of horses for war and all the administrative duties thereby entailed. The training of the horses is not only a necessity for their use in war but is an essential factor in the successful training in time of peace of the Artillery, Engineer and Army Service Corps Unit of the Citizen Forces.
9. It is considered therefore that there is no legal objection to the establishment of a remount department as a non-combatant corps of the Permanent Forces in time of peace, nor to the appointment of persons as officers of that corps from among those enumerated in the third proviso to section 148 of the Defence Act.
10. I shall be glad of the favour of advice as to whether there is any legal objection to the course proposed.

Sub-section (2) of section 31 of the Defence Act 1903-1918 provides as follows:

(2) Except in time of war no Permanent Military Forces shall be raised or organized, or, save as mentioned in sub-section (3) of this section, maintained except for Administrative and Instructional Staffs, including Staff Corps, Aviation, Survey, Army Service, Medical, Veterinary, and Ordnance Corps, Artillery, Fortress Engineers, and Submarine Mining Engineers. Sub-section (3) gives power, under certain circumstances, to maintain, after the cessation of a time of war, forces raised during the time of war.

If the remount corps proposed to be raised were simply to consist of an administrative and instructional staff, there would, I think, be power, under section 31 (2), to raise, organise and maintain such a corps. It appears, however, from the memorandum quoted above, that the principal duty of the corps would be the breeding and training of horses for war.

Those duties appear to be non-combatant duties, but section 31 (2) does not, in my opinion, authorise the raising of all non-combatant corps. Apart from those corps specifically mentioned in the sub-section, the sub-section does not, I think, authorise the raising of any corps not solely engaged in administrative and instructional duties.

I am, therefore, of opinion that there is no power under section 31 (2) to raise a remount corps as proposed.

In the absence of the power to raise a remount corps, it is unnecessary to consider the question of the appointment of officers to the corps.

[Vol.17,p.63]