ARMAMENTS RACE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 36, 13 February 1939, Page 6

ARMAMENTS RACE

r J’HE armaments race which is now in progress throughout the world is diverting a large, amount of human energy and a tremendous amount of materials in non-productive channels. Consequently, where such expenditure is made out of capital and not out of income, it represents a definite loss economically. It is unfortunately true, however, that at the present time no country is able to restrict its policy to the serving of purely economic ends. If a country is open to an invader and is invadec then there is an end to all economic gains. It should not be imagined that because the Allied Forces could not occupy Germany after the Great War, and because the reparations imposed upon Germany could not be collected, that occupation of invaded territory will not occur in the future, nor that reparations will be imposed upon the people who have been conquered. This will react upon t lie. [conquerors, truly, but it provides the defeated countries with years of anguish and privation notwithstanding. Turning to the expenditure of money on armaments proper it is to bo found, vide the Armaments Year Books, that the expenditure by the nations of the. world in 1938 on armaments amounted to 9500 million old gold American dollars. The old American dollar was taken as the standard of value during the great depression because it was the one currency which remainet stable. The sum of 9500 million old gold dollars represents no loss than 16,000 million (taper dollars of America’s present, cmrenev. Expressed in sterling if could be set down at 3400 million pounds sterling or. expressed in New Zealand currency, 4250 million New Zealand pounds, or more than twelve Innes the whole of the national debt of New Zealand. The foregoing figures are only approximately correct, because in some countries it has been necessary to estimate the amounts, and it should also be noted that the figures quoted represent only military, naval and air expenditure proper and exclude other expenditure on semi-military organisations and certain public works such as roads, aerodromes and such like. The problem which confronts the world is how to apply the brake of this colossal expenditure. There appears to be very little prospect of relief, and that is why the financial condition if the ao-n-ressor nations is of such importance at the moment.