£300,000 EXPENDITURE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 235, 4 October 1937, Page 10

£300,000 EXPENDITURE.

EXTENDING AIR FORCES. DEFENCE OF KENYA COLONY. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) CHRISTCHURCH, Saturday. The turbulent current of politics in the last few years has brought parts of the British Empire which were once comparative backwaters into the main stream of international affairs. This may be said of Kenya Colony, in British East Africa, which was once a neighbour of the independent State of Abyssinia, but now borders on the Italian empire. Recent and current extensions of the defence forces of the colony were mentioned in an interview by Mr. W. I*. Wilkins, formerly of Christchurch, who has lived the greater part of ten years in Nairobi, the capital. Though he did not draw any inferences, Mr. Wilkins said that Britain was spending about £300,000 on extending the Royal Air Force unit in Kenya. Recently, he said, the Kenya Defence Force had been revived. This was a voluntary unit of Europeans. Its main purpose, he understood, was to train officers, who would be available for mobilising the defences of the colony in case of need. Quite a number of Abyssinians had come over the border into the colony. No effort had been made by the Italian administration to reclaim them and at present it was not known what would be done with them. In the meantime i they were being kept in camps.