Defence

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32018, 19 June 1969, Page 16

Defence

Sir, —Once again Sir Hamilton Mitchell comes up with his yearly spate of scare propaganda, and as usual it deals with the present spending on defence, which he claims is “far behind” the principal areas of Government expenditure. This sort of talk does more to fertilise misunderstanding between natidns than any other form of propaganda. The following figures prepared by the United Nations SecretaryGeneral, U Thant, for the conference of the Eighteen Nations Committee on Disarmament, convened in Geneva in March, may perhaps be conducive to a little constructive thinking by those who can only think of peace in terms of fire-power preponderance. In 1962 the yearly global expenditure for military purposes was $120,000m., since when the yearly world military outlay has increased to more than slBo,ooom. There are at present 500 million people on the bread line and a further 1500 million undernourished, 2000 million people without

hope of a better life unless the West quickly releases the knowledge and machinery that will help them to help themselves.—Yours, etc., R. J. GLEN. June 18, 1969.