THE COST OF DEFENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 192, 15 August 1925, Page 8

THE COST OF DEFENCE.

It may strike many people as a melancholy fact that seven years after the greatest of wars Britain should be spending £127,000,000 on defence, as compared with £82,000,000 in 1913-14. All the Dominions save South Africa are spending more on defence; our own cost has increased by nearly £400,000. The important fact is often overlooked, how-' ever, that the cost of everything—men and material—is much higher than it was before the war. The cost of living gives a guide, and in England last year it was roughly 70 per cent higher than in 1914. The British army to-day is smaller than at the outbreak of the war. There are, for example, several thousand fewer white soldiers in India than there were then. The personnel of the Navy to-day is about 40,000 less than in 1914. There are some thousands fewer men in the British Navy than in the American, though this is due partly to the fact that the average length of service in the British Navy is longer. It is only fair to the British Government that these facts should be known.