Inflation and defence costs

Mr. Ronald King's letter of January 25 is more than welcome in that it opens up the matter of defence budgets.
On the issues of fact I don't think that he and I are really so divided. Portugal certainly spends more than the United Kingdom, on a Gross National Product basis, on "defence", and vastly more in percentage terms, of its national budget, But Portugal is fighting a major war on three fronts and is simply not in the same league as other Western European countries.
Furthermore, it is true that education has for the first time topped "defence" in our own national budget. But this is the first time and, taken over the years at least, does not invalidate the assertion that "defence" is our largest item of national expenditure.
On the complicated problem of the redirection of resources and manpower (Phantom=700 council houses) from warlike to peaceful purposes, the French bishops, not all that naive, had a number of very sensible things to say last spring. An English translation of their statement is now available from Pax Christi.
But the real point of my highly compressed piece was to point_ out, on the authority of Barbara Ward, that we ought to be aware of the inflationary consequences of "defence" expenditure and of our Christian responsibility to seek peaceful ways of settling our international disputes. Let other readers now please join in.
(Mgr.) Bruce Kent Pax Christi National Chaplain 109-113 Gower Street, London, W.C.I
Mgr. Bruce Kent (January 18) dislikes the "fiscalisation of beliefin West Germany. But is there really such a thing?
Heinrich Boell makes it clear that his quarrel with the Church is a matter of politics and not a matter of faith (report in the Catholic Herald of January 4). Ilk distaste for the "participation in a Te Deum for the military junta of Chile" by the Archbishop of Santiago is based on his political convictions and not his religious beliefs, Ile clearly doesn't like military juntas.
Both Mgr. Kent and Heinrich Boell refer to the "fiscalisation of belief": is there really any such thing?
Michael Ashton 20 Mill Road, Salisbury, Wiltshire.