New Zealand is no whit behind Australia; indeed, in proportion to population, the Dominion supplied more men during the first ten months of the war than even the Commonwealth. The troops actually sent on active service by this community of a little more than a million people were:—

First Samoan Force2,000
Main Body8,000
First Reinforcements800
Second Reinforcements2,000
Third Reinforcements1,800
Samoan Relief Force500
Fourth Reinforcements2,200
Fifth Reinforcements2,000
Sixth Reinforcements2,000
Extra Force2,500
Seventh Reinforcements2,000
———
Total in 10 months25,800

Throughout this period the Dominion held a valuable reserve in hand, for the minimum age had been kept at twenty years. This excluded a fine body of young men between the age of eighteen and twenty, all of them well trained under the compulsory system; as grand a body of young soldiers as the world can show. Their number is estimated at 22,000, and over 90 per cent. of them have volunteered for service abroad. At the time of writing the question of lowering the age limit to eighteen was being considered in New Zealand, though the number of recruits of the standard age was still so satisfactory that the step was not necessary. New Zealand is preparing, like Australia, to send out five per cent. of its whole population to fight the battles of the Empire abroad; that is a force of 50,000 men. The whole number of men of military age in the Dominion is less than 200,000.

The Canterbury Section of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force.

Those who remain for the defence of the Southern nation are now busy in preparing munitions for the Great War. The factories of the young nations have already been converted into arsenals under the control of Munitions Boards, and hosts of volunteers are working long hours to supply the men of Australasia with every requisite for victory.

Lastly, Australasia has not forgotten that the duty of providing the Empire's food is one of the most important within her province. The year of the outbreak of war saw her producing industries hampered by a disastrous drought, so that the harvest failed and less than twenty per cent of the anticipated wheat supply was garnered. The year 1915 saw quite a different state of affairs; bountiful rains prepared the way for huge crops, and the farmers had sown lavishly, so that full advantage might be taken of this favourable state of affairs.

The wheat crop of 1915-16 nearly doubled the previous record for an Australian harvest. It was garnered by boys and old men and women. Over 200,000 tons of this precious wheat was placed at the disposal of the Allied nations, its freighting and sale being made a national affair. Thus Australia was able to supply 200,000 tons of wheat as one contribution to the fighting forces of the Allies, and was a price as obtained never before approached in the history of Australian agriculture, the Commonwealth was the better able to bear the burden of warfare the Australians had so generously taken on themselves.

Thus Australasia keeps a watchful eye on the gaps wherever they occur, and sets about filling them with a single-minded devotion to the great object which has obliterated all other consideration in the minds of those young nations of the peaceful lands beneath the Southern Cross.