MILITARY SUBSISTENCE IN CURRENT PRICES

Relatively good information is available for the estimation of the in-kind consumption of military personnel. On the one hand, the detailed budgetary reports prepared by the Ministry of Finance supply a mass of detail on the breakdown of military expenditures by department. From these reports, I am able to estimate expenditures for military consumption in kind by the war and marine ministries as the sum of expenditures for provisions and uniforms (including accessories). My figures on military consumption in kind in current prices are given in Table E.1, column 1.

MILITARY SUBSISTENCE IN 1913 PRICES

Detailed information for the deflation of military consumption in kind is also available. Weights of food versus uniform expenditures in 1913 can be gleaned directly from the budgets of the War and Marine ministries, which are broken down into these two categories. The distribution of expenditures among major food products for the armed forces is supplied by Beskrovny for the turn of the century. Insofar as such things tend to change slowly, one can readily take this food product distribution as representative of 1913.

The price weights thus established, it remains to collect the necessary price information.