BRITISH ARMY.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VI, Issue 1578, 5 March 1919, Page 7

BRITISH ARMY.

FINANCIAL PROVISION.

(A. & K.Z.) LONDON, March 3. In the House of Commons Mr Winston Churchill (Secretary of War), in moving the Army Estimates, which provide for 3,500,000 men, pointed out that the figures were provisional, owing to the uncertainties of the future. Much depended on the amount of indemnity Germany had to pay. We possessed all the means for coercing Germany, which was starving and dangerously near collapse. We could allow Germany to import food and raw materials the moment she signed the peace treaty. The Armv Estimates for 1919-20 amount to £287,000,000. A White Paper estimates that the maximum number in the army at the end of March, exclusive or those serving in India, will be 2,500,000, which number will be rapidly reduced to 952,000, of whom 403,600 will comprise the armies of occupation on the Rhine, including troops from France and Belgium, and 308,400 will be in the Middle East. The home and colonial establishments will total 240,000. Among the 1 ; 548,000 troops in course of demobilisation are 325,000 from the Dominions. VOTE PASSED BY COMMONS. Australian and S.Z. Calif Association. (nee. March 5, 9.50) LONDON, March 4. The House of Commons agreed to the Army vote. Replying in the course of the debate, Mr Winston Churchill said that the War Office Estimates covered practically half the year just closed. The British Army on the Rhine amounts to 10 divisions (about 200,000 men).