GROWING RICH BY BRIBERY

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 132, 25 November 1911, Page 7

GROWING RICH BY BRIBERY

ONE FIRM ALONE HAS PAID AWAY £2,000,000 IN BRIBES.

Fifty Russian officers are on trial at Moscow, and an astounding state of corruption in the Supply Department of the Russian anny has been revealed. It is stated that one firm alone has paid tiway over £2,000,000 in bribes in the last twenty-one years! One of the member* of the Receiving Committee is alleged to have been paid £27,000 on one transaction alone. So heavy has been the bribery that the clerks of the Department deliberately spoiled the samples of any firm which did not give bribes. It is calculated that the Russian Government have lost £10,000.000 at least in the last few years on this account. Russia has always had an unenviable reputation for corruption. When Port Atrhur surrendered a large number of Continental critics of the land of the Czar did not hesitate to openly accuse fioneral Stoessel of having accepted a large bribe from the Japanese. Reports were floating round at the time that half his staff was subsidised by the Japanese. These reports were manifesetly absurd, but there is at least on record one case where a.commander has been known to surrender for a consideration. This was said of Marshal Bazaine about the fall of Met?. The French Government investigated the terrible charges j against him-, and found him guilty. He was sentenced to death, though this was afterwards commuted to imprisonment for life. At the time the

amount of the bribe said to have been | aid to Bazaine by the tierman Intcllij.'( iicc Department was definitely tsated to lie C'ilo,<K)o. Tliougli the French Government found Bazaine fuilty, there wore grave doubts cast upon the verdict. 'The hotbed of bribery is New YorJjt Oenml Bingham, an 6f Police, estimates that £2O„0OO,OOO in ) tribes is paid in Mew York every year, lie openly said that he could have made €200,000 a year for himself from this source alone. One gambling den offered him a bribe of £2OOO a month if he would allow them to remain open. So frightful is the "graft," that the positions in the police service aro eagerly sought after. Habitual criminals purchase poliec protection, and many New York "bobbies" receive bribes from every class of private citizen, from publicans to street hawkers. Mr. Nixon, speaker of the American House of Assembly from 1899 to 1905, died worth over £120,000. When anynew laws were under consideration he generally received something from those interested.