Rearmament And Penny-Pinching

Friday 3rd July 1936

The Select Committee on Estimates of the House of Commons was doing its bit to ensure that the armed forces and their respective ministries did not get too carried away with the idea increasing the pace of rearmament was to be allowed them to drain the public purse by unwise spending. Unlike Germany, where the notion of sound finance had been entirely discarded as a consideration in military expenditure, conservative budgetary planning remained the norm in Britain.

Staff numbers were too high at Army training establishments, most especially at the Army School of Equitation. The MPs did not go quite so far as to question whether training for mounted warfare still had a place in the modern army. The same unconsidered penny-pinching was directed at the makers of planes for the RAF; the MPs were more concerned at the danger of their making excessive profits than anything else.