THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1917. DEFENCE EXPENDITURE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17171, 26 November 1917, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1917. DEFENCE EXPENDITURE.

The statement which was issued by the Defence Department last week, giving the details of the war expenditure up to September 30, showed that the total outlay at that date was £26,846,475. Included in this figure is a sum of £231,745 expended upon relief. in Belgium and elsewhere, and when other items are added of £79,236 representing remittances to and from soldiers, £19,350 on the pay warrants account, and £54,683 spent in raising war loans, the total defence expenditure at September 30 is brought to the total of £26,999,744 shown in the gazetted Wrfr Expenses Account. In this total the interest on the war debt is not included, for this constitutes a charge against the revenue account of the dominion. Even if this were taken into consideration, however, the average monthly expenditure on the war since ,the beginning of hostilities would fall very considerably below the amounts which, we have been told from time to time, have represented the average monthly expenditure. Necessarily the average is steadily increasing, but the average of £971,595 per month, which the public accounts show to have been expended since June 30 last, is so far short of an expenditure of about £1,900,000 a month, which the Minister of Finance declared in the Budget on August 1 last to be approximately the expenditure at that time, as to excite some feeling of wonder as to how the difference is mdde up. However the discrepancy may be explained—and, 110 doubt, there is a perfectly-sufficient explanation—the expenditure has mounted up to an extent, and is mounting up at a rate, that justifies the concern which has been manifested respecting it and that demonstrates the reasonableness of the demand that it should to subjected to a rigid overhaul. The public is not greatly enamoured of Royal Commissions, but the. feeling is probably very general that the cost of the appointment of a commission to report upon the war expenditure of the dominion may be repaid many times over if the personnel of the commission is well selected, if the recommendations of the commission are carried into effect, and if—as must be assumed to be likely—the war lasts long enough to enable the benefit of any reforms proposed by the commission to be fully realised. It has been stated, with every show of authority, that two of the ablest accountants in the dominion—meii whose experience and knowledge of business are widely recognised—will be members of the commission. It will be of advantage if the commission also includes commercial men who have had practical experience in the purchase and handling of merchandise, of which great supplies are consumed in the training camps. It would be of very great advantage, moreover, if the commission were to include a man who is acquainted with the principles of military organisation and who possesses such a knowledge of the character of the training that is given to reinforcements both here and in Great Britain as would qualify him to offer advice that would be of value as to the way in which the courses of training might be effectively co-ordinated. It is to be recognised that it may be difficult, if not impossible, to secure th? services, as a member of the commission, of any person with this qualification. Yet, while the present system of training is producing soldiers who are unquestionably efficient up to a certain point, it is almost certainly the case that this system is needlessly costly and that it is involving the dominion in the expenditure of very large sums of money that might be saved under a reorganisation of methods. We claim no originality for the suggestion, which, in fact expresses the opinion of some of the officers who have rendered service of the greatest importance at the front, that the period of training of recruits in New Zealand might be appreciably reduced, with the result that the war expenditure of the dominion and the interference with the productive industries of the country would alike be greatly lessened. Expressed in business terms, the suggestion is that it should not take four months—that it should not take more than two months—to give to the recruit the training which he receives in camp in New Zealand, while the course of training which he receives in camp in England, where the instruction imparted to him is of the most essential kind, is completed within four weeks. If the plan 1 of training were so re-organised that, while it should be continuously progressive from the day the recruit enters camp in New Zealand to the day he reaches the firing line so that any over-lapping would be avoided th© duration of a man's stay in camp in the dominion might be reduced by one-half, obviously the dcfence expenditure would be curtailed by a very large amount. i'he benefit, also, which the dominion would, enjoy from the productive capacity of the man, retained for two extra months in his civil occupation,

would be hardly less valuable. It might bo late iu the day, at this stage of the war and at this stage of the diversion to military uses of the man-power of the dominion, to introduce a change of this character. If, however, the criticism which wo have indicated is sound, it is plain that the 1 defence expenditure has been heavily swelled through the adherence to a plan of training which has not neoessarily made for an increase of efficiency iu the Expeditionary Forces.