DEFENCE EXPENDITURE

Sun (Christchurch), Volume V, Issue 1309, 24 April 1918, Page 8

DEFENCE EXPENDITURE

SITTING OF COMMISSION. Press Association. WELLINGTON, April 23. At the afternoon sitting of the Defence Expenditure Commission, Archibald Walker, surveyor to Lloyd's register, and a member of the Transport Board, gave details showing how alterations were made to ships to til them out as transports. While a timekeeper was put on board to check the time worked on any ship, there was no proper check on' the material used. The contractors were paid by time, receiving 10 per cent, on the outlay. The chairman: But the fundamental principle of this method is to check the outlay. Witness: That has never been done. The chairman: We must look into this. We must postpone your evidence. It opens up a new field of investigation. Ask your colleagues to meet and see how best they can bring it before us. What we want to know is what checks there were on the fitting-out of ships in the last two years. Colonel Hi ley, General Manager of Railways, explained how he came to receive his military appointment. He received no pay, and no allowance for this work. Witness denied that the engineer officer in charge at Featherston had no power to put in a new nanc of glass in a broken window without sending a requisition to Wellington. TO-DAY'S PROCEEDINGS. Press Association. WELLINGTON, April 24. Giving evidence before the Defence Expenditure Commission today, J. R. Sampson, officer in charge of'the Beturned Soldiers' Information Department, said that up to the end of last February accounts for the cost of the department had been passed by him, totalling £7995. After deducting the amounts paid to soldiers for special tuition, allowances, railway fares, and medical examination, the average cost of the department for the two years and a-half of its existence ws £2462 per year, including initial expenses. As far as expense was concerned, he did not sec how the Returned Soldiers' Association could administer the office more economically than his department. There were signs that the department's schemes for financially assisting men learning new trades at technical schools, factories, workshops, etc., was meeting with increasing favour. A scheme which may involve the expenditure of thousands of pounds of public money could not, he thought, be handed over to an association of private persons, not subject to the control of a responsible Minister. It was impossible to conceive that public opinion would approve of the whole responsibility of providing training and employment for disabled soldiers being handed over to a private institution in exchange for a subsidy of £SOO per annum, the Government presumably thereafter washing its hands of all responsibility. Of 17,065 men who had returned, 5108 had gone back to their former or other occupations, while 3107 had signified that they did not require assistance.