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Show Australia Adds To War Efforts Production of Flanes, Naval Vessels and Munitions Progresses Rapidly. MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA. Australia already is committed to a war expenditure of more than 200,000,000 in the year ending next June 30. This compares with 270,-000,000 270,-000,000 spent in the whole of the last war. The new program has propelled Australia into an industrial indus-trial revolution. At a cost of 50,-000,000 50,-000,000 she has established an armament arma-ment industry surpassing India's in magnitude of output and second only to Canada's. More than 120,000 men enlisted in the Australian imperial force, the vanguard of which made a brilliant beginning in the capture of Bardia, Libya. Reinforcements are being enlisted at the rate of 5,000 a month. An additional home-defense army of 250,000 men is being raised, chiefly by compulsory enlistment of single men from 19 to 33 years old. The program for building three Tribal class destroyers and 50 mine sweepers, half of which are for the United Kingdom government, is proceeding pro-ceeding and a number of vessels already al-ready have been launched. Air Force Stronger. The air force is 11 times stronger than it was before the war, having a personnel exceeding 40,000. A total to-tal of 37,000,000 will be spent this year in development of the empire air scheme and in strengthening Australia's air defenses. Nearly 38,000 men have been enlisted under the empire scheme. In addition to the men training in Australia, many air contingents have gone to Canada and some to Rhodesia for training. Others have reached the United Kingdom for the final stages of training and will soon be in action. The air force was strengthened in 1940 by tl.o delivery of the one-hundredth Lockheed-Hudson bomber from the United States, as well as hundreds of other aircraft from Britain Brit-ain for the empire scheme. Hundreds of thousands more Australians Aus-tralians have been employed in production pro-duction of aircraft and munitions and in growing food for Britain. J. total of 15,000,000 will be spent this year on new munitions establishments. establish-ments. Australia maintains a steady supply of munitions to Britain and also exports to New Zealand, India, the Straits Settlements and Hong Kong. Training aircraft such as the Australian-designed Wirraway and Tiger Moth are being produced at the rate of four a day and designs are being perfected for a high-speed bomber. Delays are being overcome over-come in completion of a plant for the manufacture of Bristol Beaufort bombers. Speed Production Rate. Since Essing Lewis, managing director di-rector of the Broken Hill Proprietary Proprie-tary company, Ltd., and director general of munitions, assumed control con-trol of munitions production, assisted assist-ed by eight other leadir' industrialists, industri-alists, a new pace has been set in rate of output. Airplane engines were in production within six months after receipt of blueprints from overseas and a huge factory now is being equipped for the manufacture man-ufacture of optical-glass aircraft instruments. in-struments. Orders totaling' 2,000,000 have been placed for construction of Australian Aus-tralian machine tools for new defense de-fense workshops. Motor-body and automobile-assembly workshops are delivering scores of vehicles to the army daily. There is a steady supply sup-ply of stores and equipment for technical units. Factors that assisted in this impressive im-pressive record are the steel industry, indus-try, capable of producing more than 1,500,000 tons of high grade steel yearly, and the manufacture of hundreds hun-dreds of components for munitions, machine tools and aircraft in hundreds hun-dreds of private factories. j |