BRITISH POLITICS.

Hokitika Guardian, 16 August 1919, Page 2

BRITISH POLITICS.

BAD BUSINESS

(By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.J (Australian «fc N.Z. Cable Association)

LONDON, August 14

In the House of Commons, the End Advocate dealt with liis and other recent allegations of extravagance, and. even fraud in connection with irregularities iii regard to the Government aerodrome contracts.

The Lord Advocate condemned the Public Accounts Committee, as its report thereon made it appear that only about' £50,000 or £60,000 was involved in the contracts whereas the actual amount was £286,000 or five times as much as was alleged. The Lord Advocate condemned the lack of administrative supervision existing There was a confusion of accounts such as left.no prospects of a successful criminal prosecution against anyone.

General Seeley (Air Minister) replying in the House *of Commons to the questions on the Air Force financial disclosures said, that every possible step had been taken to bring, to justice any persons guilty of corrupt practices regarding the contracts.

WHERE THE' MONEY GOES. LONDON, August 14

In the House of Commons, Rt Hon. Winston Churchill, speaking on the general expenditure, said a reduction could be hoped for. It had been arranged that the British force on t> Rhine should by the end of September be reduced to one strong brigade. T ah force there could be reduced to one squadron. There were still, he said over one hundred thousand Germans and Turkish kept as war prisoners, who need a hundred thousand troops to guard them. Permission, he said, had been granted, to repatriate the Turks, but the Allied Supreme Council had not yet authorised the repatriation of the Gcr-

mans. Then there was the maintenance of a hundred thousand Allied troops, of whom twenty thousand were British, in Mesopotamia, which was, he asse- teci one of the mainsprings of the profligate military expenditure complained about. Enquiries were now proceeding with a view to reducing this force as well as those in Egypt and Palestine.

Mr Churchill admitted there were now sixty thousand troops kept in Ireland, as compared with only thirty thousand before the war. He said tlie Irish Executive most strongly opposed any reduction in this force at present They had .still to maintain one hundred thousand men in France for salvage work, or otherwise they would leave valuable assets rotting on the

ground. There still were many thousands of men seriously wounded in the lios;;--tals.

It was clear, he said that the onlymeans of reducing the great expenditure at present entailed, was to bring home the men at the earliest opportunity, and to re-establish privately- owned industries.

Mr Churchill emphasised that it was urgent, but prohlemhatical to reduce the cost of the National Government. Yet he promised it, even if it would involve the abandonment of many cherished reform schemes.

He estimated that the cost of reproducing the pre-war army ‘wqiild, owing to the increased pay- anefyefllowances, bo £637,500.000. a<fi??3sdinpnred with only- £29 000.000 spent formerly. He had instructed General •Tronchlqrd to provisionally- frame a scheme for limiting to £25,000,000 the Air force expenditure.. which was estimated at £25.000.000.