DEFENCE EXPENDITURE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 27, 25 February 1913, Page 8

DEFENCE EXPENDITURE

SOME INTERESTING FACTS. , A great many statements have been made lately regarding expenditure on the land defences of the Dominion, and extravagance in connection with them has been alleged. In conversation with a member of The Post staff to-day, the ' Acting-Minister for Defence (Hon. R. H. Rhodes) mentioned the following interesting facts bearing upon this subject:— - (1.) Lord Kitchener gave no estimate of what the cost should be for New Zealand, but as he said that the strength of the New Zealand Army should be approximately one-fourth that of Australia, it may bo assumed that he estimated the cost to the Dominion to be also about one-fourth of that which he recommended for Australia. His estimate of the annual expenditure , for Australia was £1,884,000, vide paragraph 104 of his report. One-fourth of this amount" would be £471,000 per annum for New Zealand. (2.) The Australian estimates for last year for purely land defence, entirely exclusive of any expenditure in connection with the Navy, or anything else except the Army, are £2,973.146, an excess of £1,089,146 over Lord' Kitchener's estimate. One-fourth of this would be £743,286 for New Zealand. (3.) In starting a business concern it is the invariable -rule to pay initial and capital expenditure quite separately from annual expenditure. No sum for the necessary initial and capital expenditure for guns, equipment, clothing, etc., necessary to start the new scheme of universal training in New Zealand, has ever been allotted. All this necessary initial expenditure has been paid and provided for out of the Consolidated Fund for 1911-12, 2401,870; and for 1912-13, £481,462.