DRASTIC CUTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 58, 9 March 1932, Page 7

DRASTIC CUTS.

ARMY ESTIMATES.

BRITISH ECONOMIES.

Essential Services Suffer to

Make Ends Meet

£3,500,000 SAVED,

(British Official Wireless.)

(Beceived 1 p.m.) RUGBY, March 8. The Army Estimates, presented in the House of Commons to-day by the Financial Secretary to the War Office, Mr. Alfred Duff Cooper, shoAved that the amount asked for was £36,488,999, a saving of £3,192,000 on the sum voted last year.

This reduction was achieved by drastic economies and the suspension of many essential Army services. One economy of £1,000,000 was obtained by the cancelling of the Territorial Army's annual camp training, a saving that cannot be repeated next year.

Mr. Duff Cooper recalled that his Labour predecessor at the War Office, in presenting the Estimates last year, stated that economies had been carried to the utmost practical limit. Nevertheless, the Army Council had been requested to meet a special call for economy by a saving ef £3,500,000. This year's Estimates must, therefore, not be taken as a standard for future Estimates.

He paid a special tribute to the small British force now bearing a grave responsibility in Shanghai. The members of this force were performing their difficult duties in a spirit worthy of the Army's best tradition. The British soldier in Shanghai, as in other places in the past, had shown himself to be one of the best ambassadors for peace.

REVENUE RETURNS.

Balanced Budget Possible in

Britain.

CHEERING POSITION

(Received 12 noon.) RUGBY, March 8. Revenue returns for the week ending March 5 indicate that revenue continues to come in satisfactorily, and the economies forecasted in the revised Budget last September will be realised.

The total revenue received during the week amounted to £26,600,000, and the expenditure to £17,200,000, leaving a surplus for the week of £9,400,000, and reducing the deficit from £46,400,000 to £37,000,000.

This is £21,000,000 less than the deficit at the same day last year. There now remains three weeks and a half in which to secure a balanced Budget, which the late Chancellor or the Exchequer, Viscount Snowden, planned, and there seems every reason to expect that this will be accomplished.