COST OF THE ARMY

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 39, 15 August 1919, Page 7

COST OF THE ARMY

MEANS FOR ITS REDUCTION

BRITISH COMMITMENTS ABROAD,

(AUSTRALIAN-NEW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.) LONDON, 12th August. In the House of Commons, Mr. Winston Churchill, speaking on the subject of general expenditure, said it had been arranged that the British forces on the Rhine would be reduced by the end of September to .one strong brigade, and the air force to one squadron. There were still over one hundred thousand Ge-rman and Turkish war prisoners, and these needed a hundred thousand troops to

guard them. Permission had been granted to repatriate the Turks, but the Supreme Council tad not yet authorised the repatriation of the German?. The maintenance of a. hundred, thousand troops, of whom twenty thousand were; British, in Mesopotamia-, was the principal cause of profligate expenditure. Inquiries were proceeding with a view to reducing this force, as well as those in Egypt and Palestine. There were sixty thousand troops in Ireland, compared with thirty thousand r before the war. The Irish Executive most strongly opposed any reduction at present. We had to maintain a hundred thousand troops in France for salvage work, otherwise valuable assets would be left rotting on the ground. There were still many thousands of seriously wounded men in the hospitals. It was clear, he said, that the means of reducing the expenditure was to bring home the men at the earliest opportunity and re-establish private industries. He again emphasised the urgency of the problem of reducing the cost of the National Government, even if that involved' thb abandonment of many cherished' schemes. The estimated cost of reproducing the pre-war army, owing to the increased pay and allowances, would be from 65 to 75 millions, as compared with 29 millions formerly. He had instructed General Trenchard to provisionally frame a scheme limiting the Air Force expenditure, estimated at 25 millions, to that amount,