Britain: An official handbook > 1959

BRITAIN: AN OFFICIAL HANDBOOK
106
to the scene of any trouble. Since ‘the over-riding principle must be to prevent war
rather than prepare for it’, priority is given to the production of the deterrent
nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them though it is emphasised that
conventional forces armed with conventional weapons will still be essential.
The intention is that there should be no further call-up of men for National
Service after the end of i960 and that by the end of 1962 the armed forces should
be composed wholly of Regulars and reduced to little more than half the present
size. If, however, voluntary recruiting fails to produce the numbers required it
may be necessary to have some limited form of compulsory service after 1962.
During the two years ending April 1959, the male strength is being reduced from
about 704,000 to about ssbjooo.1 The rate of run-down in later years will depend
on the international situation and the requirements of the regional defence
organisations of which Britain is a member.
DEFENCE AND THE ECONOMY
After the end of the second world war the strength of the armed forces had been
drastically reduced. It was not until growing world tension made it inevitable that
this trend was first halted and then reversed. Following the outbreak of war in
Korea in 1950, the United Kingdom embarked on a programme for building up
its defence forces, at a cost estimated originally at £4,700 million over a three-year
period.
Between 1950 and 1953 annual defence expenditure was nearly doubled, rising
to some £1,400 million in 1952-53, and over the same period the total strength of
the active forces increased from just under 7oo>oo° a peak of about 875>000 at
the beginning of 1953. With the end of hostilities in Korea, the programme was
revised to meet the changed conditions and to keep it within the limits of the
country’s economic resources in the face of rising costs. In place of a short
rearmament spurt there was substituted the policy of the ‘long haul’; the pro¬
gramme was slowed down and spread over a longer period.
Nevertheless, the burden on the economy continued heavy. Over the five years
1952-56, defence absorbed on average nearly 10 per cent of Britain’s gross national
product. In 1956, some 7 per cent of the working population was either in the
Services or supporting them, and one-eighth of the output of the metal-using
industries—vital to the economy as a main source of exports—was devoted to
defence. The very heavy cost of maintaining large British forces abroad (which in
1956 involved expenditure of some £179 million in foreign currency) placed a
severe strain on the balance of payments. The total net defence budget of nearly
£1,500 million in 1956-57 (after allowing for receipts from United States aid under
the Mutual Security Programme and German contributions to the cost of British
forces stationed in Germany as part of the NATO forces) equalled more than
one-third of total central Government current ordinary expenditure.
The effects on the economy of the new defence policy announced in 1957 were
already beginning to make themselves felt in 1958. The proportion of the working
population in the Services or supporting them is falling, the claims on the metal¬
using industries are being appreciably reduced, and the call on scientific and
engineering skills is easing. Even in 1957, current expenditure on defence
represented about 8 per cent of the gross national product, compared with 9 Per
cent in the previous year.
1 Excluding Colonial troops and other forces enlisted overseas, amounting in 1958 to
about 48,000.