MILLIONS MORE FOR WEAPONS

Southland Times, Issue 23145, 11 March 1937, Page 5

MILLIONS MORE FOR WEAPONS

NATIONS’ BUDGETS FOR 1937 INCREASE OF 50 PER CENT ON 1934 (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright) (Received March 10, 7.50 p.m.) GENEVA, March 9. An expenditure on defence of £600,000,000 compared with £400,000,000 in 1934 will be made by Britain, France, Italy, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Belgium, Austria and Hungary this year. No figures are available for Germany, but it is believed that the estimate of £1,000,000,000 is exaggerated. Russia s expenditure is estimated at £800,000,000. Belgium is the only nation whose expenditure has dropped since 1934. The report of the German Institute of Business Research on January 6 showed that the world's expenditure on defence in 1913 was £833,000,000; in 1928-29 it was £1,250,000,000, and in 1936 it was from £2,500,000,000 to £2,900,000,000. Russia’s bill had increased sixteenfold in the past eight years, Japan’s by 100 per cent, France’s by 56 per cent., Britain’s by 39 per cent, and the United States’s by 38 per cent. No figures were given for Germany. ’ League of Nations experts estimated on December 27 that the world spent the record total of approximately £1,400,000,000 on armaments in 1936. The League Armaments Year Book, in which it is stressed that the figures are indefinite because of secrecy, records that 8,200,000 men were under arms in 1936. of which Europe’s share was 4,600,000, equalling the number in 1913.

It is pointed out that the figures exclude semi-military organizations; for example, the Black Shirts (Italian Fascists) and Brown Shirts (Nazi Storm Troops). The strength of the principal armies is as follows;— Russia 1,300,000 France ’ 740,000 Germany 600,000 Italy 500,000 Britain 196,000 It is estimated that at least 17 battleships of between 26,000 tons and 35,000 tons will be built by the middle of 1937. Military aircraft in 1936 are estimated at at least 10,500 machines and 5000 reserves. GAS MASKS FOR BRITONS BIG OUTLAY ON AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS LONDON, March 10. The Home Office Estimates total £23,940,000, an increase of £4,690,000. They include £6,144,000 for air raid precautions, of which half is being spent on gas masks. There is in addition provision for £598,000 for fire brigade services in special air raid precautions. • M. BLUM BACKED UP BY WIFE SCENE AT PASSING OF DEFENCE BILL PARIS, March 9. A disturbance caused by his wife’s resentment at the conduct of another deputy interrupted an appeal by the Prime Minister (M. Leon Blum) for support of the Defence Loan Bill in the Chamber of Deputies today. Mme. Blum was sitting in the Speaker’s Gallery with a friend when she caught a Rightist deputy, M. Beatrix, laughing during M. Blum’s speech. She exclaimed: “Be quiet! You could not do it half so well.” An argument followed which caused the temporary suspension of the sitting. The Bill was passed by 470 votes to 46. The Bill was submitted by the Minister of Finance (Dr Vincent Auriol) at a brief session of the Chamber of Deputies, and it was then referred to the Finance Committee. The preamble says that the measure shows the inflexible intentions of the Government to guarantee national security while safeguarding the finances. The Bill merely authorizes 'the loan. The rate of interest and the price of issue are not being disclosed until the issue is made. NAZIS ADMIT FORTIFYING RHINELAND BERLIN. March 9. The first admission of the fortification of the Rhineland has been made by Major Post of the War Ministry. In an article commemorative of the first anniversary of the re-occupation he says: “Without a slavish imitation of the French Maginot Line, needing many years and countless millions to create, German frontier territory now enjoys again today the protection of fortresses.”