DOMINION DEFENCE.

Northern Advocate, 15 May 1918, Page 3

DOMINION DEFENCE.

INQUIRY NEARLY ENDED

SIR J. ALLEN CRITICISED

WELLINGTON, May 14

With the close of the sittings of the Defence Expenditure Commission in sight speculation as to the nature of its report is rife. Sceptical people, remembering the ways of previous Commissions and previous Governments, are not sanguine of anything very drastic resulting from the labours of Sir Robert Anderson and his colleagues. They have seen a brave show of resolution before, they say, and very little performance. But people better acquainted with Sir Robert Anderson's methods and his work in Australia are much more optimistic. They expect the chairman, whose rvfnning commentary upon the evidence has been both frank and suggestive, to make recommendations which it will be impossible for the Minister to ignore. The need for reform in various directions has been shown beyond the shadow of a doubt, and Sir Robert Anderson is not the sort of man to be a party to obscuring the fact.

During the sitting of the Commission on Saturday morning the chairman paid a somewhat dubious Compliment to the Minister of Defence. There has been a disposition on the part of several witnesses to attribute everything that has gone wrong m the administration of the Department to the obtrusion of political influence, and it was in commenting upon the evidence of a witness who had contradicted a particular allegation of this kind that Sir Robert Anderson rather overdid his exoneration of the Minister. "We have asked all over the place," he said, "and never once been able to trace a case in which the Minister of Defence has interi fered with an appointment." So far as it goes this is admirable. But

the most serious criticism directed against Sir James Allen is that he does not interfere with the heads of Departments enough, and that, among other things, he allows them to make utterly unsuitable appointments with motives less, unimpeachable than his own.