MEAT AS MANURE

Hokitika Guardian, 4 February 1921, Page 3

MEAT AS MANURE

; 1,120,000L85. ROTTING AT I ABBEVILLE. s' CONFESSIONS OF DISPOSAL i BOARD, t J r I LONDON, December 16. ' ! Following the organised campaign by l what Mr Bonar Law calls the “Yellow • i Press,” against official waste, disclosures have just been made of what apj pears to bo the wholesale squandering of the taxpayers’ money. Tinge sales of surplus Army stores were advertised tliis week in French newspapers to take place at the Abbeville dump. The following announcement is taken from a catalogue of this sale:—“A . very important lot, consisting of preserved meat in gross and in boxes. The meat is unfit for human consumption, but could be' used in the manufacture of ma,mute. A bant 1,120,000 J pounds weight.” J “The authorities responsible for the liquidation of Army stocks,” says the j “Daily Express,” “with utter disregard of the fact that they have permitted 500 tons of food to lie rotting for two J yjeurs, have drawn attention to this lot bv printing it in bold type.” There arc fifty-eight other lots to he sold, and the catalogue says that no guarance goes with the sale. What further iqiiriiitity of foodstuffs will the purchasers’find in the same rotting condition as the preserved meat?”

The same journal draws attention to what it calls “glaring examples of scandalous waste of print and paper.” The publishers of the catalogue, not content with the futility of advertising single articles such ns a front mudguard, appear to have gone out of thenwav to inform the public what they have riot. got. This extraordinary statement appears in list R 129. “Serials No 51. Soans 6 and < M spares for bolts W.I. screwed 21 in.. and Jin. No. i" stock "Nil. Bolts book ’in. x fin. No in stock- Nil.” Every folio tells the same tale. One split-pin is offered for sale with a wealth of detail. One protection bracket for ignition control gear, one expander tube and two and a quarter inches of hardened up tube steel clamour for purchasers in another. Nothing more cynical than the story of the Abbeville and Audruicq “dumps” bus been revealed in the whole history of two years' prodigality. ® Who is responsible for this ghastly waste of the taxpayers’, money ?” “The Times" asks. “When it was decided that all surplus stores should he handed over to that department, a Disposal Board was set up whose performances have been much in the public eye. Competent men, military and civilian on the Board are not lacking, but, as public enquiries have shown, it suffered fiom constant interference from outside. By November 30th., arrangements had been completed by the distinguished official, who*then controlled sales in France, for the disposal ol all the surplus stores in that country by the end ot last July. At the last moment this arrangement was cancelled and a resident Boa id was set up in Paris far from the dumps. For months past it has been /common knowledge that stores were rapidly deteriorating, but guarded official denials were always forthcoming. The Ministry were warned more than a year ago that it was dangerous to hold perishable stocks much longer.” A traveller in the devastated areas of Northern France speaks of the dumps of mediene and other bottles at Etaples. Many thousands of bottles of all shapes and sizes are at this moment ly-. ing there in a great pile some 120 yards in length. The only people who appear to take the slightest interest in them are the French peasants, who may be seen on most days gleaning the more valuable kinds of bottles from the gigantic pile. Every day hundreds are bio-

ken and destroyed owing to exposure to the weather and other causes. The tremendous camp at DannesCauiiers is gradually tumbling into ettor ruin. There is scarcely a single whole pane of glass left in the windows of that vast range of hutments; many doors, posts, and plantfs have b< -u wrenched away The whole encampment presents a picture of inter desolation. The same confusion exists in the dumps round Bailleul. Many thousands of pounds worth of valuable war stores, of all kinds are slowly being destroyed by the action of time and the wintry weather.