A WASTED TWO MILLIONS.

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 May 1906, Page 3

A WASTED TWO MILLIONS.

j J n his speech on introducing (he Army Estimates, Mr Haldane said: "If you go to Salisbury Plain you will see stretching before you acres of beauj tiful brick buildings in a barren plain : standing almost empty at the present time, a monument of wasteful expenditure.” These ate (says Mr 11. W. Lucy) the Tidworlh Barracks, a glaring example of the way tho money went under Mr Balfour’s Administration. The initial steps in the transaction led to some scandal. It happened that the landowner of the desired site was Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day- There was nothing irregular in the matter. The honor of Sir Michael Ilicks-Beach might safely be trusted to take care that in a bargain wherein by strange fato ho was both vendor of tiro property and trustee of tho purchaser, the public •should not suffer. Nevertheless, it was a concatenation of circumstances that created much comment at the time. It was Mr St. John Brodriek's martial eye which, surveying his colleague's property in a section of lhr( waste land in Salisbury Plain, discovered in it an ideal site for a barracks on which to locate one of his six army corps. The army corps were not then existing, and, its we know, have not since come to birth. Still, as a prudent, far-seeing man, the Secretary of Suite for War resolved to have tho barracks ready in good time. The site was accordingly bought, plans for tile barracks were hurriedly drawn up and the work was pressed forward regardless of expense. Completed last year, they have cost two millions stor-' ling, and stand to-day absolutely worthless. No private householder wants a barracks on Salisbury Plain, and the First Army Corps for which the costly accommodation was prepared, turning out to be men in buckram, we have no soldiers wherewith to lill them. i