DEFENCE REPORTS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16833, 8 September 1922, Page 9

DEFENCE REPORTS.

ECONOMY THE MAIN ISSUE. “ VERY DRASTIC CUTS.” (Special to the “ Star.”’) WELLINGTON. September 7. Retrenchment and economics eff€*eted are the most interesting features of the annual .report of the Defence Department presented to Parliament today. During the year the Department had endeavoured to carry out the universal training provisions of the Defence Act as far as the limited funds at the commandants' disposal per muted. The main estimates for the year 1921-22 amounted to £515.958 and provided for carrying out a full amount of training, except that at tendance at camps was to he restricted to officers and non-commissioned officers. This restriction was made in order to balance expenditure. which was extra to that provided for in the proposed scheme. The chief items of such extra expenditure were: (1) The pay of officers, non-coramis sioned officers and men. who had been placed on leave pending retirement, ami compensation awarded them for Joss of appointment (2) Small arms ammunition, the new contract. which provided for a saving ot £.50.000 por annum, not being fully effective until April 1. 1022. In November. 1021.. instruction* were received that. the expenditura provided for in the estimates was to he reduced by £107,000. This decision coining as it did niter seven months of the financial year had passed, necessitated very drastic cuts wherever possible, but more especially where they would take immediate effect Among those made were discharge of most of the temporary personnel, the closing oi the school of instruction, the withdrawal ot authority for camps, only a few ol which had so far been held and cancellation of the Dominion Hi fie Association meeting for 1922. The result has been that expenditure has been reduced hy slightly more • than the amount required, but the Department has been much criticised. DEFENCE SYSTEM REVISED. A further decision that, after the \ear 1021-22 the vote for land defence an l nviation was to be limited to £350.000 necessitated revision of the existing scheme. Proposals for a re. vised scheme have been submitted, of which the following have already been put into effect: Reduction in permanent- forces and > iril staff to a strength of approximately 100 officers and 400 other ranks Reduction of the strength of the Territorial force by allowing trainees to be posted to the reserve after four years’ efficient training, two of which may l>e in the Cadets. Conclusion of a new contract for the supply of small arms ammunition. The estimates of expenditure for the year 1922-23 are baser! on these proposals. but owing to the fact that the reduction in personnel and in the small arms ammunition contract do not lake full effect until some time after the commencement of the current financial year very little money can he provided for camps or aviation. PERMANENT STAFF REDUCTIONS The decision to reduce the vote to £350,000 necessitated u reduction of the permanent, personnel by over one third, among those retired being mans highly qualified officers with excellent i©cords. both in New Zealand and in the field, also thirteen staff cadets at the Royal Military College of Australia. Three officers and eight other ranks wore retired on superannuation The remainder received no concessions beyond a grant on retiring on leave on the same scale as civil servants. Of the officers retained four lieutenant colonels reverted to the rank of major and one major to the rank of captain. Showing how drastic the reductions have been it is pointed out that the strength of the permanent force in 1014 was 760 officers and men, in 1020 it was 1728. m 1021 it was 1100. and in 1022 it was 522. The personnel of the staff corps, permanent staff and Royal New Zealand Artillery is now less than half oi that maintained prior to the war, but by economising work, closing all obsolete defences, by abandoning the attempt- to follow up trainee., posted to the non-offectiv© list, by reducing the total number of compulsory parades and by consolidating training as much as possible it is hoped that training can be continued in all except very small centres. The closing of the ordnance depot at Dunedin, the merging oi' the Palmerston North depot with the main ordnance depot at Trentham and the disposal of the large stock of surplus and obsolete stores had made practicable a considerable reduction but the financial situation necessitated a far larger reduction than was warranted by the necessities of defence. The handing over of hoc pitals to the Health Department, too Jiad enabled the permanent Army Service Corps to be disbanded, with the exception of one warran officer retained on the permanent staff of each command for instructional duties. The strength of the citizen force in June last was Territorial forces . . 14,070 Senior cadets . . . 23.008 Rifle clubs . . . 5,769 Total . . , 44,047 WHAT THE WAR PROVED. The experience of the late war. states the report, showed that the average New Zealander, if physically fit, can soon be trained sufficiently to take his place in the ranks of units that have officers and non-commission-ed officers who are capable of completing his instruction, but that officers and non-commissioned officers require much longer and more thorough training. also that any weakness in a unit was almost invariably due to lack of properly trained officers and noncommissioned officers. The. closing of the school of instruction is. criticised as a severe blow to the efficiency of both the territorial force and the cadets. It is hoped that tho school may he re-opened as soon as finances permit. Only such defence work* as would be manned in war ar? now maintained as fighting posts. ?’he new contract for small arms ammunition, it iR explained, provided for an annual supply of about half the amount of the previous contract, and means a saving of some £50,000 a year. T he amount voted last year for defence purposes was £418.784. of which £415,451 was spent. This representi about 2.66 per rent of the total expenditure of all State Departments, a* against 6.44 per cent in 1914.