FIVE PER CENT. PATRIOTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1628, 24 October 1916, Page 4

FIVE PER CENT. PATRIOTS.

HUT CONTRACTORS’ HUGE PROFITS. London,' Aug. 24. The facts disclosed in the recent-ly-issued report of the Public Accounts Committee and the White Paper on Army hutting, contracts made it very apparent that patriotism is not necessarily an expensive luxury, and that, in fact, a display of patriotism made at an opportune moment may prove vastly profitable in the long run. An illuminating example may be cited.

In the list of builders who made huts for the Army there appears 1 lie name of a very big firm which has, since the outbreak of hostilities, erected huts which have cost the nation something like £3,750,000. At the beginning of the war this firm offered to erect huis for no payment beyond “the hare cost,” hut later, when they were in possession of the work, they asked for a commission on new contracts of 5 per cent., with 1A per cent, to cover standing charges. 'They refnsejd to harken to the representations of the War Office that the position was awkward, in view of the fact that other contractors had followed fheir “first patriotic example” and wore performing similar work on payment of out-of pocket expenses only, and “after considerable controversy,” they had their own way. They did £400,000 worth of hutting at “hare cost,” and three and a-qnarter million pounds’ worth on their own terms, and the other “patriotic” firhis had to be dealt with similarly. Moreover, the firm referred to cliiimed to he paid commission on ih£ cost of everything supplied to them by the Government, and “it was finally agreed, as a compromise, that a commission should he paid upon the value of (he limber supplied, but not on any of the fittings for the huts, nor on certain readymade hut s which the War Office provided.”

Will it he believed Hint, in spile of the generous sacrifice made by the ■contractors, in order to effect this “compromise/’ the experts consulted by the War Office actually venture to place on recni’d their opinion that the scale of commission was excessive “for work of such magnitude” f And, if is sail to relate, an ungrateful public shows a decided agreement with the experts.