THOSE HOSPITAL SHIPS.

Free Lance, Volume XVI, Issue 867, 16 February 1917, Page 6

THOSE HOSPITAL SHIPS.

Wanted, a Parliamentary Enquiry,,

WHEN Parliament reassembles it is to be toped fhat some outspoken and courageous member, daring Ministerial, to say nothing of gubernational, displeasure, will insist upon, full details being given the House as to -the cost of tbe equipment and running*of our hospital ships. From a return prepared by the Defence Department and : published this week, we learn that the cost to 31st December last, of the heno (while employed as a. hospital' ship) has been £172,000, and of the Marama (whilst employed in the same capacity) £142,465. These amounts

will certainly appear to the publiq.somewhat "heavy, but we fear very much that they would he very much larger if all the items properly chargeable against the vessels, the pay, and allotrances of the medical staff and. other expenses, were added. There is a very general suspicion abroad, a- suspicion founded upon some very curious ; rumours, that the tSVo vessels have been run on most extravagant- lines, and & vast amount of public money has been wasted in connection therewith. *".'.■''■-'■#■. . *:■■•■■■ ■» It may be that when the items are discussed > in ,the House 'as- discussed they must and ought to be,' the snobbish old cry will be raised that no enterprise .with which His Excellency the Governor has been personally associated ' should be publicly criticised. > "VYe trust that this utterly untenable plea will' be disregarded by the Parliamentary critics. We have always held, and we know that a verylarge section of the public holds, the opinion that a very prave error has been made by the Government in allowing Lord Liverpool to assume a personal and semi-autocratic control of the hospital ships, their equipment, and their movements. This was not the Governor's' job at all, but that of the Defence Department, and were the question investigated by competent legal authorities, we believe it would be found that the Governor, although no doubt acting with perfect sincerity and the best intentions in assuming such control, has gone entirely outside' his proper sphere of action as laid down by constitutional law and precedent. At any rate, there is no reason why Parliament should not insist upon a searching investigation being made into the cost of running the hospital snips—and, what is equally important —into the exact manner in. which they have been run. l