SURPLUS ARMY SUPPLIES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2095, 26 February 1920, Page 1

SURPLUS ARMY SUPPLIES.

Great resentment is felt throughdul Brilmin, if newspaper reports may be taken as a eriierion, at the failure of the Imperial authorities to satisfactorily deal with the surplus army supplies. Materia! is lying' in many parts of Groat Britain, France, Belgium, Egypt, Saloniea, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. Surplus Navy material is filling ports and harbours. The total realisable value of this material was estimated recently by a Disposals Board official at somewhere about £300,000,000. Public feeling is shown in angry letters to newspapers, members of Parliament, the responsible head of Disposals, Lord Tnverforth, and the active head, Mr F. G. Kellaway. The result of this criticism is being felt. It has already led in places to the dismissal of a few minor persons who have not been doing their duty. This official offered two reasons for the slow rate at which the material is being sold to people who can make use of it: A desire to get the best possible price for the public. A fear lest certain trades should be ruined in England by a Hood of Army material. He acknowledged that at the present rate of disposal it would take years to realise the stocks. There is, for ex-, ample, one set of buildings in London covering several acres which contains in one section thousands of magnetos, the new English magneto industry would lie ruined, it is suggested, if these, were sold by auction

unci the space given up to the people who own the building. As for moving the magnetos and the “hundreds and thousands of pounds worth” of other stores, that would take from seven to eight months, and requh’C endless transport. But while the magnetos are in store they are eating up money in the form of rent and payment of clerks and storekeepers. So it is everywhere, and in many places the stocks are not housed in warehouses, but left in the open to rust and rot. Travellers on the Great Western Railway crane out of the windows open-eyed, at the sight of stacks upon stacks of barrows, shovels, picks, and other material extending, for miles. . Going north a similar sight of acres of open ground closely packed with light carts can be seen at Chilwell, near Nottingham. In France and Belgium such sights are common wherever the British Array lias established depots. In one spot near Mens there' are hundreds j)f motor transport lorries. France and Belgium havoboth made offers for the best of the British salvage, and the latter country has bought barges,and railway ;

material at fair price*; but the Americans spoiled the market by practically giving' away immense stores, and the War Oflice is sticking - to its price and shipping everything for which that price cannot be obtained. The total result appears In be that while England is already loaded up with unrealisable stores, more stores are pouring in by way of the Ricbborpugh train ferries, and buildings are being-crowded which ought to be cleared and sold. In estimating the realisable stores at three hundred million pounds, the Disposal Board-makes the proviso that the actual total cannot be arrived at until the Government has determined what the after-the-war strength of the Army, Navy, and Air Forces shall be. Vigorous reduction of these war services will throw upon this overloaded market still more stores.