A TALE OF MILLIONS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3186, 10 September 1917, Page 5

A TALE OF MILLIONS

HOW THE WAR OFFICE SAVES COST. An amazing story of economy effected by the Army Contracts Department is contained in a .paper compiled for tho Committee of Public-Accounts by Mr. Lf. F. Wintour, Director of Army Contracts (now to the Ministry, of Food). Tho value of the purchases of the Department during tho war has been over

.£700,000,000, including .£200,000,000 on behalf of tho Allies. Tlie present annual value of purchases is about .£350,000,000, including about ,CIOO,OCfI,GOO for the Allies. Among tho purchases during the war

105, million yards cloth, 115 million yards flannel, 35 million knives, forks, and spoons, 400 million lb. of bacon, 167 million lb. of cheese, 260 million tins jam, 500 million preserved meat rations, 35 million pairs boots, 25 million smoke helmets, and 40 million horseshoes.

During tho twelve months ended April 30 last tho cost of contracts for hardware,

horseshoes, brushes, and similar articles to the value of .£8,500,000 was investigated, and reductions wero made amount-

ing to .£400,000, or 4.7 per cent. By tho control of raw materials, including wool, leather, jute, flax, and hemp, huge savings have been effected, estimated at over £13,000,000.

Without counting the receipts from the sales of by-products it is estimated that tho control of the Indian kips alone has resulted in an economy of £1,125,000. It is reckoned that tho control of manufacturing processes in the rase of

jute lia6 effected, a saving of £6,000,000, the control of raw juto a saving of over 11500,000 on half a year's supply, whiln in the case of hemp the estimated annual turnover of 30,000 tons is calculated to produco a combined profit and saving of .£1,750,000. As to flax, but for the Department's dealings at least <21,000,000 moro for linon goods would have Lad to be paid, and possibly very much moro than that. The price paid -for tea in 191G under tho old systom varied between lOd. and 11.70 d. a pound, tho averago price for twelve months being 10.G7d. per pound. Under tho new system the tea is bought at OJd. to 9Jd. per pound. The purchases in 1917, including Admiralty requirements, will probably amount to IK),000,000 pounds. Experiments wero instituted with a view to finding uses for old boots—for example, tho production of ammonium sulphate, extraction of metal md grease, road-making, etc. Disused or damaged smoke helmets are sont to a factory where all the chemicals in them are extracted and utilised again in the making of fresh supplies, whilo tho flannel ia cleaned and repaired. In this way a sum of at least ,£BO,OOO wps saved. By the middle, of 191G tho daily deliveries of clasp knives, table knives, and forks, spoons, and razors totalled over 100,000 articles, as against about 20,000 per day in the beginning of 1915. A saving of 3d. a pair has been effected by using a doublo sole_ for boots instead oi' tho singlo solo previously insisted on. A new method for selling condemned boots has produced' a profit of .£IO,OOO over the old method, whilo 000 per annum is saved by the re-issuo of boots prematurely condemned. Six pounds a ton, or .£350,000, lias been saved by Department control of the barbed-wiro making, the demand for which in 1915 was about 1000 tons per week. A further .£300,000 a year has been saved in the cost of disinfectants by tho control of blast furnace oil.

This touch comes from the letter of a French soldier, and is worthy of a Jules Verne. "In really up-to-date trenches you will find; kitchons, diningrooms, bedrooms, and even stables. One regiment has first-class cowsheds. One day a whimsical piou-pioti, finding a co«: tendering about in the danger zone, liad the bright idea of finding shelter for her in tlio trenches. The example was quickly followed by his comrades, and at this inoment the infautry possesses an underground farm, in which fat kine, well cared for, are giving such quantities of, rafii Hint butter is being regularly distributed; good butter, too." The newspaper "Libcrta," of Trente, declares categorically that in Austria, as well as in Germany, there exist fnetDrifts for tlio treatment of human corpses, from which fats are extracted for military purposes and even for uso as food. The paper states that ono of theso factories is situated not far from the Italian front, and the assiduity of tho Austrian? in collecting dead bodies in the sectors nearest this factory lias been frequently noticed. They never miss an opportunity of collecting Italian bodies. Tlio "Liberta" is now published at Milan, but receives information direct fro as .Tresto, ' —