ENGLAND SPENDING MORE THAN FRANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 221, 25 February 1915, Page 5

ENGLAND SPENDING MORE THAN FRANCE.

ARMY OF 2,500,000 MEN. TO FIGHT TO THE END. Mr Lloyd George recently received a visit from two Socialist members of the French Parliament and a friend, and explained to them what England is doing to bring the war to a successful conclusion. The story of the interview is told by M. Jean Longuet in the' Paris newspaper Humanite. We quote some of the leading passages: — "I do not know," the Chancellor suddenly said to us, "if our friends in France quite realise the effort that is at present being made by England for the common cause, of the Allies." . "Certainly," I replied, "full account is taken in France of the vigor, and resourcefulness with which Great Britain has entered upon and is carrying on the struggle.". . . "Also of the extent of the sacrifices of men and money that she has already made, and especially of those she is preparing to make?" '1)o you know, firslt, that Great Britain is expending as much —more, I believe, at present—as France on the war, notwithstanding the relative, smallness of her first military force dispatched to Flanders? £45,000,000 A MONTH. "Do 'y° u know that our monthly expenditure for the .armv and the navv is at present £45,000,000, or one milliard one hundred and twenty-five millions of francs per month?" (M. Painleve remarked in this connection that the figures supplied for France by M. Bibot. Minister of Finance, in an interview published in the" Petit Parisien, did. not comprise all our expenditure. But we finally agreed with M. Ee.naudel that this total figure could not, in any case, be higher than the English total figure). "But," I observed to the Chancellor, "how is your enormous contribution to be explained, even taking into account thp cost of your formidable fleet, when it is remembered that your army at the front represents scarcely one-sixth of ours ?"

"In reality," exclaimed Mr Lloyd George, "England has at present put more than 2,000,000 of sailors and soldiers under arms. Certainly we had to n large extent improvise this vast army, and, parenthetically, this is the strongest proof of the pacific goodwill we maintained until the very last. A FORCE OF 2,500,000.

"You have been able to see in London the admirable and enthusiastic movement which by voluntary enlistments for the duration of the war, without the constraint of conscription, has enabled us to assemble nearly a million and a half soldiers since Augusts, and which system will shortly supplv us with 2,500,000. , "

"And fine soldiers, verily! All bravest of all classes of society, intellectuals as well as workmen, rich as well as poor, the elite of our trade unionists as well as our most brilliant scholars of Oxford and Cambridge, the bench and the bar as well as the shop, factory as well as the club, have furnished in t four months these hundreds of thousands of vigorous young men of from twenty-one to thirty-six years, with whom my colleague. Earl Kitchener, has formed his new armv. You know that my two sons have enlisted as well as Mr Asquith's sons. "UNTO VICTORY."

"Before this spring 500,000 new soL <liers, superb, magnificently trained, and full of enthusiasm, will have joined those who. side by side with the valiant sons of the French democracy, are struggling at the present time, from the Yser to Belfort, to bring about the end of Prussian militarism, and to establish the liberty of Europe and that of Germany herself. And this will continue unto the end, unto victory.". . . Mr Lloyd George explained how the money was being raised, and says M. Lonsruot:-r

"That is oertainlv, we thought, 'biscuit' for the campaign, for, in spite if all her organising genius, Germany is quite incapable of collecting anything like this vast amount of money for the carrying on of the war."