The Wanganui Herald (Published Daily.) THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 1920. WAR SWINDLERS.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16036, 29 January 1920, Page 4

The Wanganui Herald (Published Daily.) THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 1920. WAR SWINDLERS.

While it has been proved that war always brings out in hold relief some admirable traits in humanity —in men and in women, and in soldiers and civilians alike—it is equally true, unfortunately, that it also provides some people with the opportunity to show how despicable they can be. These latter people are rarely found in. the lines, sometimes they occur at the base, but for the most part they are found well behind everything, where their skins are safe and their advantage sure. There are several kinds of such people—the plain, ordinary traitor and the super-traitor, the shirker of duty, the hunter of “cushy jobs,” the plain harpy or swindler, the profiteer. The profiteer may be divided into two classes. There is the ordinary kind who takes it out of everybody, but within certain limits, and who is bad enough. And there is the kind, generally posing as a trueblue patriot, who takes it out of, of all people, the men who are fighting their country’s battles, and who waxes fat on the flesh and blood of,- the soldiers and the sailors. Strange, indeed, is it that the wit of man has not yet devised an effective way of dealing with these ghouls. They have flourished in all wars, and still continue to flourish. In Nelson’s time, the victualling of the Navy was done by contract. Many a contractor grew wealthy by supplying rotten pork and weevilly biscuit for the sailors, who foiled Napoleon to subsist on. This scandal went on for. a long itme before it became so glaringly bad as to bring about its own end. There was a time, not so long ago, when the soldiers’ weapons were made by contract, and in the Soudan War many a man’s life was sacrificed because his ■bayonet, instead of going through the enemy’s shield and reaching his body, crumpled up like a strip of cardboard. But the contractor got his profits, even though b« supplied rotten steel.

Governmental supervision and inspection ensured, generally speaking, sound equipment and munitions in the European war, but yet

we heard quite too often of “dud” shells,, and how many times officers refused to accept delivery of faulty ammunition, some of our soldiers can tell. But the swindlers who supplied them saw to it that they got their cheques in payment. France is just now excited over the discovery that some of her great, ironmasters enriched themselves during the war by stealing for their own use large quantities of the metals required for munitions in their country’s defence. So vast were the thefts that, when a certain big order for shells was placed by Foch, only half was delivered, because what should have made the rest was appropriated by the manufacturers to their own use. Is it any wonder that we came near to losing the war? Beside that of these men, who make their money by endangering the safety, as well as sacrificing the lives of thousands qf soldiers, the fault of the common or garden variety of profiteer facies into comparative insignificance. A rope or a firing party is too good for them. Perhaps that is the reason why they never seem to get either. Rarely even do they get a term in gaol. Somehow, the Governments which will sanction the shooting of a soldier for endangering his comrades’ lives by going to sleep on his post, view matters in a different light when it comes to punishing a contractor who endangers many more men’s lives by supplying rotten war material, or by stealing the metals meant for making material. And it is long odds that the punishment will never fit the crime of those who, in the recent war, dealt really in flesh and blood by practising their cold-blooded swindles on their country and its defenders. If we are to judge by past performances, the Governments will protect quite a lot of them, or will mishandle prosecutions where they are compelled to prosecute, and if, in >? a few rare cases, they have to punish, the penalties will be made as light as possible. But if every swindling war contractor in Britain, France or elsewhere, had his whole business confiscated, every stick and chattel he possessed taken from*, him, and were turned out on the street to hunt a pick and shovel job, in return for the sacrifice of human life he is responsible for, public opinion' would say, even if the Governments did not, that he had got less than his deserts, and that his punishment was far milder than it ought to he.