COST OF WAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 72, 26 March 1940, Page 6

COST OF WAR

TOKEN VOTES

THE HIDDEN MILLIONS

(By Air Mail, trom "The Post's" London Representative.) LONDON, February 23. The Army, the Royal Air Force, the Navy, and the Supply Ministry are to cost the country only £100 each during the coming year. That is, only £100 on paper. Actually, they will drain the country of hundreds of millions of pounds. But the exact estimates will not be revealed since it would not be in the "public interest." It would tell too many tales to Hitler and his Nazis. The opinion of the Treasury is that I ". . .in view of the fact that vital information might be disclosed ,to the enemy it would be preferable that the number of men should not be given and that votes should be presented from authority 'for such numbers as his Majesty may deem necessary.'" The practice is the same as during the last war when no exact information was given about ,the amounts to be spent. Each sub-head, or vote, will be given the "token" amount of. £ 100, so that Parliament may authorise expenditure on the particular purpose, as is required constitutionally. When the Navy Estimates were issued this week there were 18 sub-heads, each of £100.

In the last war, officers and men in the Navy totalled 400,000. At that time the pay of. officers and men was much lower than it is now, and if the Navy reaches the same strength again the annual bill for wages alone will be £88,000,000, nearly as much, as the total of the Navy Estimates in the era of disarmament.

The total naval expenditure between 1914 and 1919 amounted to more than £1,000,000,000. The Navy accounts for the last year of that war, as finally passed by the Auditor-General, exceeded £325,000,000. On the average, all votes were quadrupled during the war, and if expenditure is on the same scale this time the naval budget for a full year may exceed £600,000,000. It is, however, improbable that one important vote, that for shipbuilding, will be increased to that extent, since there was an exceptionally large programme in hand when war began and there is no foreseeable need for addition of large numbers of capital ships, the most costly types of all. Patrol craft, destroyers, and antisubmarine vessels will certainly be needed in large numbers, but their cost is much lower than large vessels such as the Repulse,. Courageous, and Royal Sovereign, j-which were built under the programmes of the last war. Expenditure on guns, shells, torpedoes, and mines will be considerable. and last year's estimate of £17,000,000 may easily be moire than quadrupled, j