ARMS INVESTIGATION

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 29 March 1935, Page 7

ARMS INVESTIGATION

Urgent Demand to Put End to Insinuations “PAY AS YOU FIGHT” PLAN FIXING OF WAR PROFITS (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph Copyright). WASHINGTON, March 27. Mr Baruch, former chairman of the War Industries Board, who appeared before the Senate Munitions Investigating Committee to-day, made an urgent. demand. that the committee should “put an'end to insinuations or innuendoes,” or “find me guilty of violation of the trust and confidence imposed on me during the period of the war.”

He insisted that when he was called to the service of the wartime Government he sold “at a heavy cost to my fortune all holdings that even remotely touched my official duties.” . During the wartime period this personal fortune totalled £1,960,000. He paid income" tax of- £52,200 in 1916, but in 1918 and 1919 he reported losses, having resigned virtually all his business connections.

, Mr Baruch, who has recently been appointed chairman of the committee to devise ways of taking excess profits out of war, outlined for the Senate Munitions Committee his plan in wartime of “paying as you fight-,” involving taxation and price-fixing. Individual profits would not exceed £2OOO a year and the President would be authorised “to clamp the ceiling down over the whole price structure.”

“LUCRATIVE APPOINTMENTS. ’ HOUSE OF LORDS ALLEGATIONS. WIDE INQUIRY DESIRED. LONDON, March'27. Lord Marley, drawing attention in the House of Lords to the arms inquiry for which a Royal Commission was recently appointed in Britain, suggested that the terms of reference might be wider, as in the United States senatorial inquiry, and should include correspondence submitted by. America “to see whether we are governed! by the National Government or by Sir Basil Zaharoff.’t

Th e bulk of Air Ministry orders, Lord Marley said, were not competitive. Even when tenders were called there was reason to believe that there was collusion between firms in close relationship with Vickers. The Admiralty should have investigated the position. It was significant that officers leaving high Admiralty and War Office positions found lucrative appointments with armament firms. Viscount Halifax in reply said Lord Marled’s speech was inopportune, as a commission had been, specially appointed to enable public opinion to reach a reasoned and informed judgment. The terms of reference were wide enough, but were deliberately different from those of the American inquiry, which led to a vague, roving, fishing inquiry. It was not the Government’s duty to try to teach the commission how to carry out the inquiry. . Lord Marley could best assist by reporting special points to the commission.