The Cost of Defence The White Paper on Defence, issued
on Thursday, contains good news and bad. But there is this to be said about it, that the bad news—figures of the bill that the taxpayer will have to foot—was inevitable and the good was not. There might have been much less satisfactory progress in the execu- tion of the defence programme to be reported. As it is the development of the Navy, Air Force and Army (the last being now least in order of importance) is going well, though there is still evidence of serious delay in the matter of Air Raid precautions, for which the local authorities as well as the Government must bear some share of responsi- bility. But objective though it purports to be, a White Paper is a Government publication, and is likely to put the Govern- ment case at its highest. It is to be hoped that the present statement will be subjected to searching criticism when it is discussed in the House of Commons. It is by no means impossible that the report of Sir John Cadman's Committee on Civil Aviation, which is understood to embody some vigorous criticisms, will have a bearing on the military side of the Air Ministry's work. As for cost, it is formidable in the extreme, though not in excess of what the Prime Minister foreshadowed when he was Chancellor. Though £90,000,000 of the bill is to be met next year by borrowing, instead of £8o,000,000 as this year, it looks as though Sir John Simon would have to raise an extra £5o,000,000 from somewhere to make the Budget balance. He might well give attention to the leakages alleged in an article on a later page of this issue.
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