BRITISH AND GERMAN ARMS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23511, 27 May 1938, Page 16

BRITISH AND GERMAN ARMS

During the last few years Mr Winston Churchill has devoted much of his attention to Germany’s military expenditure, and recently in the House of Commons he detailed what he considers to be the latest information. “About £280,000,000 has been spent on defence services in Britain in the last financial year,” he said, “ and we are now asking for £350,000,000 in 1938. These figures are rightly judged enormous, but their acquire their significance only in relation to what is being spent elsewhere. A sum of £350,000,000 for 1938 compares with at least £900,000,000 in Germany, and it must be remembered that for the last three years in succession German defence expenditure has been running at about that level.” After giving figures for army and navy expenditure, Mr Churchill deduces that £240,000,000 is available for the Air Force, and continues: “ Our comparable British figures are somewhat over £ 100,000,060. It would, therefore, not surprise me at all if Germany were going to spend in 1938 more than twice as much upon her Air Force as Britain, and it must be remembered that this expenditure follows upon several years of even much larger preponderance of German expenditure upon the air compared with British air expenditure.”