A remarkable indictment of the methods of State trading may
be extracted by the careful reader from the Comptroller and Auditor-General's report on "Trading Accounts and Balance-sheets, 1920-21," which was issued on Monday as a Blue Book (H.M. Stationery Office, 6s. net). Sir Malcolm Ramsay has collected many striking instances of the losses to the public occasioned by State trading during the year ending on March 31st, 1921. The most amazing though not by any means the largest of these relates to the overpayment of £250,000 to a private firm from whom the Government was purchasing certain brands of Chinese lard and bacon. The payment on account was to be made at the rate of £30 per box, but "by an oversight" payment was made in this case at the American rate of £40 per box. The two officials of the Board of Trade who were responsible for this trifling error were not dismissed, it seems, but left the service of the Government in consequence of the post-war reduction of staffs. Inquiries made by the Daily Mail at the Board of Trade elicited the gratifying state- ment that £100,000 of the overpayment had been recovered from the firm in question, whilst the balance went to satisfy a counterclaim on their part.
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