SURPLUS WAR MATERIAL.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 February 1920, Page 9

SURPLUS WAR MATERIAL.

WILL TAKE YEARS TO SETTLE IT.

Surplus army material is lying in many parts of Great Britain, France, Belgium, Egypt, Salonika, Palestine and Mesopotamia (says the Daily Mail.) Surplus navy material is filling ports and harbours. The total realisable value of this material was estimated by a Disposals Board official at somewhere about £300,000,009. Public feeling is shown in angry letters to newspapers, members of Parliament, the responsible head of Disposals, Lord Inverforth, and the active head, Mr. F. G. liellaway. The result of thi3 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, a Disposals official stated. \ This official offered two reasons for the slow rate at which 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 by a flood of Army material. He acknowledged that at the present rate of disposal it would take years to realise the stocks. There is, for example, one set of buildings in London, covering several acres which contains in one section thousands of magnetos. The new English magneto industry | would be ruined, it suggested, if these were sold by auction and the space given up to people who own the building. As for moving the magnetos-and the "hundreds of thousands of pounds worth" of other stores, that would take from seven to eight mouths and require endless transport. But while the magnetos arc in the store they are eating up money in thp 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 011 the Great Western railway crane out of the windows openeyed at the sight of stacks upon stacks lof barrows, shovels, picks and other j 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.

111 France and Belgium such sights are common wherever the British Army ha 3 established depots. In one spot near Mons there are hundreds of motor transport lorries. France and Belgium have both made offers for the best of the British salvage. and the latter country has brought barges and railway material at fair prices;, but the Americans spoiled tiie market by practically giving away immense. stores and the War Office is sticking to its price and shipping everything for which that price cannot be obtained. The total result appears to be that, while Great Britain is already loaded up with unrealisable stores, more stores are pouring in by way of the Ricliborough train-ferries, and buildings are being crowded which ought to be cleared and sold. In estimating the realisable stores at £300,000,000, the Disposals Board makes the proviso that the actual total cannot he arrived at until the Government lias determined what the after-the-war strength of the Army, Navy and Air Force shall be. Vigorous reduction of tiiese war services will throw upon this overloaded market still more stores.