After Princess Louise's funeral, Arthur's heart was heavy.
But there were clearly more important matters for Arthur to attend to at that moment. The busy affairs of state left him no time to lose himself in personal grief.
Because of Princess Louise's funeral, Arthur's original trip to the Douglas Aircraft Company and Boeing Company had been postponed by several months.
He had originally been able to see Australasia's newest transport aircraft at the beginning of the year, but now he could only wait until March.
Before March arrived, Arthur convened a Cabinet meeting and formally determined the main direction of the Australasian Empire's development in 1935: continuously expanding the quantity of weapons, equipment, and strategic supplies.
At the end of February, Arthur approved the Ministry of Defense's request, and the Munitions Factories began full-scale production of weapons and equipment.
As part of the strategic stockpile of weapons and equipment, Arthur had made specific demands of the Ministry of Defense's armories. At present, the armories possessed a total of 1.557 million rifles, 14,000 machine guns, 12,000 various artillery pieces, 750 million bullets, and 25 million artillery shells.
In addition, the armories possessed 420 tanks, 780 aircraft, and their matching weapons and ammunition in terms of heavy weapons.
These reserves of weapons and ammunition were already more than sufficient for peacetime. They could even sustain a medium-sized war.
But under current circumstances, these quantities of weapons and equipment were far from sufficient. In accordance with Arthur's demands, the request submitted by the Ministry of Defense to the Cabinet Government had greatly increased the stockpile targets for every type of weapon.
According to the plan, within two years the Ministry of Defense would increase the quantity of light weapons to at least 5 million rifles, 100,000 machine guns, 50,000 various artillery pieces, 3