War Expenditure

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23985, 28 June 1943, Page 4

War Expenditure

When the member for Tauranga, speaking on the Imprest Supply Bill, again urged the appointment of a select committee to investigate war expenditure, the Minister of Finance replied that he did not consider such a committee could do effective work. Moreover, “ the “ supervision of all war expendi- “ ture was still in the hands of a “ member of the Opposition, the “Hon. A. Hamilton.” Both parts of Mr Nash’s answer are surprising. A select committee to investigate war expenditure could be ineffective, if it were well constituted and given full scope, only on the assumption that inefficiency, extravagance, and waste are nowhere to be found. If Mr Nash assumes anything of the sort, he does so too rashly. Second, the fact that a member of the Opposition is ministerially charged with the supervision of war expenditure is neither here nor there. Member of the Government or member of the Opposition, no one man can be said to “ supervise ” war expenditure: that is, know where and how and why the vast sums involved are spent and satisfy himself that they are well spetot. By suggesting that Mr Hamilton may

in a sense be regarded as the Opposition’s watch-dog, whose presence should sufficiently reassure it, Mr Nash does the Opposition an injustice and misses the point. The Opposition’s interest is not political. The point is that the normal checks and controls on expenditure are today hopelessly inadequate; tHat special measures are necessary; and that Parliament, as the authority directly responsible, should undertake them. There is, of' course, a first-class precedent. The House of Commons Select Committee on National Expenditure has been continuously at work, with valuable results. It was never suggested that a Minister should act instead of it, or that one man, by being called Minister in charge of War Expenditure, would acquire a superman’s capacity to do so.