Paris, July 3.
Within one month of any eventual mobilization order, Indo-China would have an army of 100,000 men, well-equipped and with competent officers, This is the gist of a report sent to President Albert Lebrun today by M. Georges Mandel, the Minister of Colonies, who requested that the President approve a decree providing for extraordinary taxes in Indo China to finance the rearmament programme undertaken in that part of the French Empire.
The for in Indo-China have been doubled since the past year, M. Mandel's report ided, while there is a considerable amount of war material at hand already. An ammunition factory is under construction as is also an aircraft plant which will soon be able to manufacture 150 planes and 400 plane engines each year.
To finance such programme the report concluded, a national defence loan of Frs. 400,600,000 was launched on May 24, 1938 and was immediately subscribed to in full, However, this amount proved insufficient, and extraordinary taxes are now being contemplated.—Havas.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.