MEMBER’S CONDUCT.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 21, 5 November 1940, Page 5

MEMBER’S CONDUCT.

PARLIAMENTARY INQUIRY. , .CASE OF MR BOOTHBY. LONDON, October 18. The appointment of a select committee by the House of Commons to investigate the charges against Mr Boothby, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food, clearly indicates the Government’s ruthless determination to preserve a clean record for its financial conduct of the war.

Although there are old and close personal relations between the Prime Minister, Mr Churchill and Mr Boothby, it was on the motion of Mr Churchill that the select committee was appointed to report whether the conduct of Mr Boothby, in connection with payment from certain Czech assets in Britain, was consistent with the standard Parliament was entitled to expect from its members. * Hitherto there has,-boon no allegation of either improper or unwise Ministerial conduct during, the 14 months of the war, in which Expenditure has reached the level of £9,000,000 a day, although allegations against officials of the Ministry of Supply and the War Office were sustained, and a select committee on expenditure severely censured Air Ministry officials for their conduct in purchasing sites for aerodromes in Scotland. In the. House of Commons Mr Churchill gave Labour members an assurance that steps would bo taken to ensure that there would bo the least possible dislocation to the Ministry of Food as the result of Mr Boothby’s suspension from office. Mr Boothby requested that he bo suspended. He was not asked to resign.