COST OF DEFENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16848, 13 May 1918, Page 4

COST OF DEFENCE.

WORK IN BASE RECORDS.

PROMOTION ONLY BY MERIT. [BY TELEGRAPH.OWN CORRESPONDENT.] WELLINaTON, Sunday. Before the Defence Expenditure Commission yesterday, Mr. A. D. Thomson, assistant public service commissioner, stated that there were two authorities supplying staffs to the military branch, a state of affairs which was unsatisfactory. The Public Service Commissioner had no control over the home service branch. Dual control created dissatisfaction. Military and civilian officers were working side by side, and the former received extra pay, the soldier being paid, not according to the work he did, but according to the rank he held. Questioned on the subject of fraud, witness said there had really been nothing to complain about apart from a few irregularities in connection with stores.

The chairman remarked that New Zealand was the only country he knew of which had gone through the war period without some frauds being discovered in connection with military organisation.

The officer in charge of Base Records, Major Norton Francis, contended that Lieutenant-Colonel T. W. McDonald was wrong in his figures as to the saving that would be effected by having the base records and war expenses branches under one roof. As to the evidence of Mr. Warne, the witness pointed out that the former's experience was confined to correspondence. Continuing, he said that with the exception of seven C2 men all the soldiers in the office had seen service or had broken down in camp and had been discharged unfit. Mr. C. Rhodes: Would they be cheaper out of uniform?

Major Francis said that he could not say that. They would be earning more money outside for the work they were doing. It was wonderful, he added, how much work was being done in the Base Records office at the present time. The chairman remarked that there was a deal of duplication in dealing with records, and he suggested that it could all be done, and should be done, by one department. The witness added that if- returned soldiers applied for work and were suitable they were engaged, although the work could possibly be done by women. He did not understand it was the policy of the Government to discharge returned soldiers because their work could be done by women.

Mr. C. Rhodes, one of the members "of the commission, said his idea was that they should do everything possible to get men back into their original occupations. Major Francis said that Mr. Warne's suggestion that promotion was dictated by politics and social standing was not correct. There was no instance in the office of appointments having been made for those reasons. „ The Chairman: We have asked all ever the place, and never once have been able to trace a case in which the Minister for Defence has interfered with an appointment.