£20,000,000 LOSS
BLACK MARKET TRANSACTIONS IN GERMANY COST TO BRITISH TREASURY LONDON, Feb. 18. The sum of £20,000,000 described in the supplementary defence estimates as “balances irrecoverable and claims abandoned” was admitted by the Secretary of State for War (Captain F. J. Bellenger) in the House of Commons as the . loss sustained through British troops’ black market transactions in Germany in cigarettes. Captain Bellenger explained that the substantial losses were incurred through the Military Government accumulating a surplus of marks and schillings in Germany and Austria with which the Treasury had now been landed. The troops had invested their black -market profits in Army Post Office savings. Captain Bellenger pointed out that this was why Britain was the first nation to pay troops with vouchers. It was not right that troops should make a profit out of the Treasury, but when wars happened all sorts of transactions took place.
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Greymouth Evening Star, 20 February 1947, Page 7
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149£20,000,000 LOSS Greymouth Evening Star, 20 February 1947, Page 7
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