Efficiency in Spending
Sir John Simon made prompt response to the Liberal proposal that a Select Committee of the House of Commons should be appointed to examine civil and military expenditure connected with the war, and it remains now to bring together as quickly as possible a number of Members with good busi- ness heads to get down to the job. A similar committee appointed in 1917 is alleged to have saved millions of pounds, and, of course, if it had been created in 1914 the saving would have been far greater. In such an emergency as the present, improvisations are constantly necessary ; important measures are quickly taken without counting the cost; different departments engaged on similar jobs duplicate machinery. A well-chosen committee acting as a whole and also through a number of sub-committees will have the authority and the opportunity of getting into intimate touch with the work of each of the war departments, and if the experience of the last war is repeated their inquiries will not be regarded by the departments as inquisitorial, but as help- ful and suggestive. The committee should sit continuously, making not one report only, but a series of reports; and it may be expected that many of its suggestions will be acted upon before the Report stage is reached.
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