ARMS INQUIRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 145, 21 June 1935, Page 7

ARMS INQUIRY.

British War Secrets Revealed By Former Minister. PRIVATE MANUFACTURE. LONDON, June 20. At the arms inquiry to-day, Dr. Christopher Addison, who was Minister of Munitions from 1010 to 1917, and for two years prior to that Parliamentary Secretary to the Office of Munitions, stated that the first nine months of the war had proved that the private manufacture of arms was a tragic and perilous failure. Up to May, 1915, the Woolwich National Arsenal alone had delivered supplies as promised. Private firms' deliveries were terribly in arrears and the armies were so meagrely supplied that defeat was narrowly averted by the soldiers' heroism in the face of gTeat disadvantages, coupled with the success of the Woolwich Arsenal. Dr. Addison revealed that the national factories, to April, 1917, had produced ammunition and components which cost £33,000,000. If bought at contract prices they would have cost £42,000,000. The Ministry of Munitions had introduced a costing system which had resulted in the cost of shells supplied by certain manufacturers being reduced by £400,000 a week.