UNCLE SAM'S DEFENCE

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 189, 12 August 1925, Page 8

UNCLE SAM'S DEFENCE

NO STINT IN U.S.A.

MR. COOLIDGE'S ECONOMIES.

(By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright.)

(Received 2.30 p.m.) SWAMPSCOTT, August 11. 'The big guns of the Navy and Army are trained upon a part of Mr. Coolidge's economy programme. The Budget Director, Mr. Lord, favours a cutting down for 1926 of approximately fifty million dollars, and from the 1925 military appropriations a sum totalling 574 million dollars, as agreeable to Mr. Coolidge, though General Pershing and other high officers opposed these economies on the grounds of national safety. In the winter of 1924 Congress over- , ruled Mr. Lord and appropriated twenty-nine million dollars more than recommended. The National Defence Budget now proposed totals 3,088,000,----000 dollars, only 200,008,000 dollars IeBB than the present year's Budget. The reduction in military appropriation is countered by increase in other departments, and a twenty-five million dollar public building programme. Mr. Coolidge favours unstinted appropriations for aviation services, and the Army and Navy believo in a speedy development of the air forces. Aviation expenditures for 1925 will be nineteen million dollars, and will probably reach twenty-five million dollars in. 1920.—(A. and N.Z. Cable.)