WASTED WAR STORES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8100, 3 May 1906, Page 4

WASTED WAR STORES.

The report of the British AuditorGeneral on the army store accounts for the year ISIOI-5 must be uncomfortable reading for the British taxpayer, since it throws further light on the extravagance and mismanagement, to use no stronger terms, thai led to the investigations by the War Stores Commission. Under the present system of keeping tip stocks of emergency rations, which arc only made use of in time of war, it is inevitable that some waste must occur. As the whole of the present stock has been in store for more than three years, it is not surprising to learn that as the result of a careful examination it has been decided to destroy all those reserve rations. There are about 35,000 of them, and they cost about £23,000. In other respects, however, the waste of stores is inexcusable. In consequence of the delay in erecting sufficient storehouses at Bloeiufontein many of the war stores for that station were sheltered !> j.n tents for a whole year, or lay | out m the open Large quantities of stores were lying exposed to the weather at Pretoria for the same reason. The stock-taking that was to take place when the stores were properly housed would reveal, one would think, serious damage us the consequence of twelve months' exposure and neglect. In one ease it is noted that rather more than a hundred tons of forage, which was declared to be unusable, and was ordered to be burnt, was sold to officers at 4s and Cs per 1001b. Someone must li-ivc made a good haul out of that transaction. Some 70.0(H) bottles of wiuu « ere sold at 15s per dozen, instead of the contract sale price of 2<ss per dozen. It was believed to be of defective quality, and the price suggests that it was not of the highest grade, but a month after it had been sold, the analyst, whose report had been asked for before the saie, stated that the wine was genuine I J ort, well adapted for hospital use. Large sales of animals and si eres were made to private persons, including officers, throughout the year, which possibly accounts for the deficiencies in the. stores at some stations, and for the fact that though the army animals numbered on paper 113,000, there sure on .y 83,500 in existence. A favorite method of bleeding the taxpayer seems to consist of the South African military deciding to sell surplus stores. These are bought by contractors, sold by them to others, and by the latter to the military authorities, who have sold lliem in the first place. It need hardly be added that the price paid by the army in the latter transaction bears no relation to the price it received for the sam£ goods. The new War Minister seems to have a fine large field in which to exercise his capacity for putting army transactions on business-like lines.