The Report of the Select Committee on Government printing and
stationery, which was published on Monday, points to one source of waste. The Committee found that the Stationery Office now costs nearly 28,000,000 a year, whereas before the war it cost only £1,200,000. Tho five-fold increase is due in part to the rise of prices, in part to the new policy of having half the Government printing done in State printing-offices. But a large part of this heavy increase in expenditure must be set down to the propagandist zeal of various departments, which employ numbers of journalists and others to advertise their activities. Dr. Addison is a passionate believer in this propa- ganda, and his weekly journal Housing, supplemented by innumerable type-written circulars, must cost the country much money, though it does not seem to produce any tangible result in the shape of new houses.
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