MAMMOTH MARKET.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume L, Issue 16424, 7 May 1924, Page 5

MAMMOTH MARKET.

BIGGEST SURPLUS SALE,

3,000,000 TRANSACTIONS,

LONDON, March 20. The biggest “surplus sale” on earth is drawing, to a' close after lasting for five years. Its ramifications were world-wide. Wherever the British Army went in the Great War a jumble sale followed—in France, Belgium, Italy, Salonika, India, Palestine, Egypt, Mesopotamia, to name some of the principal regions. When the final accounts are presented it is expected that the, total realised." will amount to £685,000,000, a ‘sum which has been obtained at an expenditure of £45,000,000. By Act of Parliament the Disposals and Liquidation Commission, which dissurplus from the Great War, in the possession of the British Government, must come to an end on March 31. Its predecessor, the Disposal Board, ended last May. If the winding-up of affairs; is not completed by March, the Commission may have to ; , dissolve into a branch of a Government department before its existence is finally terminated. Up to the present property to the value of £670,000,000 has been sold. A mere £15,000,000 worth now remains to be disposed of. / In the heyday of its career the Board! had a staff of 35,000; the number now is only 1800. At one time or > another 1000 auctioneers have been working for it. The property still remaining unsold comprises the Gretna munitions factory and a number of other factories in this country, some railway engines and rolling stock, some thousands of bales of wool, and various; lots of machinery. Quite recently 125 engines -were sold to one of the English railway companies. Altogether there have been more than 3,000,T00 separate transactions.