Defence Expenditure

Levin Daily Chronicle, 25 April 1918, Page 4

Defence Expenditure

EXTRAVAGANCE RIFE,

The investigation of tlio Defence Expenditure Commission has been tho means of throwing a flood of light on the economies that may be effected in various branches.

According to the ovidence of Mr B. C. Wames, the head of tho correspondence branch at the Base Eecords Office, given before the Commission at Wellington recently, the Home Department simply reeks with extravagance. Men who have been thrust into uniform and presented with regulation undergarments which they do not wear, have been given rank which they havo stipulated for and are drawing separation and family allowances which bring their salaries up to duoblc what they have been previously receiving in civilian employment. To a largo extent, according to this witness, men are being employed wlictc women would suffice. The extravagance which is prevailing in relation to telegrams is, ho aserts, simply reckless. Not the slightest attempt is being made to reduce tthe length of telegrams which take the jilacc of ordinary correspondence, and as between the Department of Defence and the Postal Department the position is described by Mr Warnes as "robbing Peter to pay Paul' with a vengeance. It may be said that tho indebtedness of the one department to the other is merely a matter of book entries, but the wires of the telegraph service are congested with wordy messages worthy of a schoolboy. Not the slightest attempt, according to this witness, is made to reduce them.