WAR EXPENDITURE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 January 1942, Page 3

WAR EXPENDITURE

WORLD SURVEY BY LEAGUE.

AGGRESSORS AND ALLIES.

(British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, January 14.

The extent to which the United States organised its war production before the Japanese attack is shown by the League of Nations world economic survey. In 1940 to 1941 the proportion of war to total expenditure in Great Britain and Germany was more than 80 per cent, Japan 70 per cent. Canada 63 per cent, and the United States 50 per cent, but the ratio in the United States rose to much over 50 per cent in the first half of 1941.

The aggressor countries increased their war expenditure between 1938 and 1941 much less, as they had already prepared for war. While German arms expenditure increased since 1938 by about twice and Japanese by a quarter, Britain increased eight times, the United States six and Canada twenty. Since 1939, total government expenditure has increased fourfold in the United Kingdom, threefold in Australia and Canada, twice or more in Germany, Italy, France and Sweden, and not much less than twice in the United States, New Zealand, South Africa, Japan and Russia. Non-military expenditure has in most cases remained stationary.