The Daily News. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1020. SHIPBUILDING FRAUDS.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 November 1920, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1020. SHIPBUILDING FRAUDS.

At the present time, both in the Commonwealth and the United States, special inquiries are being held into allegations of scandalous frauds connected with State shipbuilding and the construction of ships to be supplied to. the State. The evidence so far given leaves no room for doubt that the frauds were extensive, and of a nature calculated to lead to serious disasters. Unfortunately it is well known that it is more the rule than the exception for frauds to take place on a large scale in connection with both work and supplies paid for out of public money, and it is probable that if an approximate estimate could be. made of the amount of money nefariously obtained by this means during the war, it would represent many millions. It is difficult to understand why government work and material have come to he regarded as fair game for dishonest depredations. Possibly il may parllv he due to tl?e fact that the public provides the funds and that those responsible are tempted to sink into a state of moral obliquity in order to obtain personal gain, for if those who are trusted to see that as good value for expenditure is obtained by the State as in the case of private concerns, exercised strict supervision there would be little, if any, room for fraudulent

practices. In the United States J a congressional committee is investigating charges of waste, inI efficiency and extravagance by the Shipping Board, and some astounding revelations are being made. Commander Clement, in his evidence, admitted that the wooden ship programme resulted in a colossal loss to the Government; that employees of the Board who sold Government materials were later .employed by the purchasers: that wholesale malfeasance occurred in the purchases of material, and that the records of the Board were (presumably intentionally) inextricably confused. Experts testified to ships being supplied with' new electric steering gear which made them a menace to navigation, while other witnesses stated that vessels were made'of unseasoned wood, insufficient framework which lost shape through warping, rivets put in so that they could be pulled out of hulls with the fingers, while it was charged that a Lloyd's surveyor passed unseaworthy ships built in private yards for the Board. Apparently there existed an organised conspiracy to defraud the Government, and those unscrupulous persons concerned therein must have been totally callous of the loss of life that might result' from their barefaced frauds. According to the evidence given before the Commonwealth Public Works Committee at Sydney similar malpractices were in vogue in connection with the building of ships for the Australian Government, oue witness ( a master mariner) stating that thousands of dummy fastenings were put in to represent clinched up fastenings, while other statements to much the same effect caused the chairman of the committee to characterise the evidence as amounting to grave charges of fraud, as dummy fastenings would cause "hogging." Inquiries such as these bring to light with forceful clarity the seamy side of human nature, avarice and unscrupulousness, and emphasises the truth of the pronouncement that "where the carcase lies, there the eagles are gathered together." It is only when investigations are made into glaring cases of frauds on governments that the public are given an insight into the manner in which their money is raided by those who are well paid to be honest, but find the broad road to crime made easy. If all the malefactors engaged in defrauding the various governments during the Avar were to be suitably punished for their crimes, thousands would be crowding the gaols and penitentiaries. It is no palliation of these offences to assert that history repeats itself. We look for the onward march of civilisation to bring , about a higher stage of morality as time progresses. All that- can be done is to deal out exemplary punishment in proved cases. At the same time the outstanding lesson for all governments is that not for a moment, nor in any department of State operations can vigilance be relaxed. It seems clear that if rigid economy and the prevention of waste were carried out systematically and persistently in normal times, then there might be some hope that something approaching rectitude and honesty would prevail under abnormal circumstances. The absence of these safeguards or laxity in their observance is a premium for fraud and a temptation to plunder.