STRONGER DEFENCE
SOUTH AFRICAN UNION
£6,000,000 TO BE SPENT
HIGHLY EFFICIENT
FORCES
tJnited Press Association —By Electric Xele-
graph—Copyright. (Received September 8, 1.20 p.m.)] CAPE TOWN, September 7.
The Minister of Defence, Mr. O. Pirow, announced that the Government is spending £5,000,000 on additional arms and defence works and £1,000,000 on coastal defences over a period of three years. The most necessary equipment is being purchased through Britain.
Mr. Pirow said that the Union is training land forces which are likely to be.superior to those of any enemy they might meet. The equipment of the Air Force will bear comparison with any inside or outside the British Commonwealth.
At least two harbours are to be. fortified more strongly than those of any other Dominion. *
The Government, he said, mobilising 1000 pilots and\ 137.00Q troops. Conscription would produce^-a' further 150,000. '-■"■■■■
Mr. Pirow said that the Government would never sanction the training of natives to use arms, but that they would be used for all except actual military duties. Selected labour battalions from the Rand mines, operating under skilled miners ..with an unlimited quantity of dynamite, could bt of great military value.
STRONGER DEFENCE
Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 60, 8 September 1938, Page 10
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