GERMAN DEFENCE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 75, 25 March 1912, Page 5

GERMAN DEFENCE.

DETAILS OF THE NAVY AND ARMY BILLS. /INCREASED EXPENDITURE. Berlin, March 23. The newspapers give further details of the defence Bills. These show the increases to be £4,850,000 in 1912, £6,350,000 in 1913, £5,700,000 in ,1914. The navy increases are £750,000 in 1912, £1,400,00 in 1913, £1,900,000 in 1914, £1,900,000 in 1915, and £2,150,000 in 1916. : • V The new construction shows three battleships, two small cruisers, numbers of submarines and some airships. The Bill remedies two defects in the organisation. One deals with the dismissal of naval reservists every autumn, diminishing the fleet for battle. The second that out of the budget strength of fifty-nine ships only twenty-one are available if the reserve fleet cannot be go t ready promptly. These defects will he remedied by the gradual formation of a third active squadron. • The Army Bill accelerates the strengthening of the peace forces, which it was not intended to effect until 1914, but will ■ be carried out next October, giving two new army corps by the addition of . twentynine thousand men to the present’ increase, provided the 1911 increases are met by the surplus of the, 1911 new excise buties. MORE SOLDIERS DEMANDED. (Received 25, 8.40 a.m.) Berlin, March 24. The Conservative newspapers regret that the army is not using the rapid thousand men are available for service auually and of these two hundred and fifty thousand are not used as soldiers.