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Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16161, 15 March 1918, Page 6

A few days ago Berlin newspapers wero reported to be demanding for Germany a monopoly of the Roumanian oil industry. To-day's cables contain a message -which indicates that, with tho help of Austria, Germany intends to exploit the valuable oilfields by means of a combined corporation -with a joint capital of some 80 millions sterling. If all accounts are true, a very large sum will have to bo spent in repairing tho enormous damage done to the wells by the British military mission during tho Roumanian retreat at tho end of 1916. The officer responsible for this work, which was undertaken, of course, to prevent the Germans from profiting by their occupation of tl>e oil-fields, -was Colonel John Norton Griffiths, the head of a great English engineering firm, and he accomplished his task with singular thoroughness.

So extensive was the damage that a leading German finanoial journal a fewweeks ago asserted that there was r,o chance of their paying for many years to come, while at a meeting in London in December of the Roumanian Consolidated Oilfields, a British organisation possessing very large interests in Roumania, it -was estimated that the value of the dostroyed property was thirty millions sterling. A German staff-officor, writing in a Cologne paper about the same time, described tho destruction as "so terrible and wild that it surpasses everything that has hitherto happened. Everything ruinablc has been ruined." Germany -possesses, however, many good oilfields engineers, and she wiil doubtless use every effort to supply herself -with oil, of which she stands in great need, as quickly as possible. It may not be long before she is securing from Roumania supplies of liquid fuel for naval and other purposes, just as the British Admiralty did bofore the war, when naval tank steamers made frequent trips between Constanta and England.

Lenin is not to get the Nobel Peace Prize, for which, as wo mentioned the other day, he was nominated recently by the Philosophical Faculty of Constantinople. No one is to get it. The trustees of the Nobel Foundation, we are informed by a London paper, have found the selection of a Peace Prizeman so difficult that for the third year in succession they have announced the postponement of the Peace award indefinitely. It is curious just now to reflect that it used to be one of the Kaiser's ambitions to be the recipient of this prize, and under all the circumstances it is appropriate that Germany should be the one important country to which it has never been awarded.

Somo amazing stories of the unbusinesslike methods of Government Deportments at Home have appeared m British, papers, and have prepared one in some degree for the extraordinary revelations contained in the report t.f the Committee on National Expenditure. The oddest feature of the stories referred to is that they all .leal with instancos in which Departments have insisted on paying accounts presented to them twice, and more than twice. A North Country banker told of a large manufacturer who received £20,000 over-puyment from the Government, which declined to take the money back though its attention had been drawn to the mistake. "Other firms unable to obtain payment had sent in their bills at regular intervals, and when the machinery had at last begun to move they were receiving payment on each copy of their bills and couldn't stop it."

Another correspondent vouches for the absolute truth of two cases that ho quotes. One was that of a farmer whose account for £94 was paid twice. He returned the second cheque to the Department •Joncerned, but it was returned to him with an explanation that it was in settlement of his account. He ha 3 so far failed to convince them that the .noney is theirs, and has therefore paid it into his bank to await developments. Another farmer sent in an account for £610 for hay supplied. The amount was disputed, and ho reduced it to £COO, which was paid at once. Later .-m he received a second cheque—this time for the full amount of his original account of £610! Bad book-keeping is, of course, responsible for such grotesque and costly blundering, but the reason for the refusal of the Departments concerned to take back money that tliev, have paid twice is the ;n----grained belief in Departmental infallibility—a trait which is probably common to Civil Services all the world over, and is certainly to be found in X<w Zealand. Soorer than admit that he has made a mistake, the genuine Departmental officer of a certain type would prefer that the public should pay twice over for a servicc.