THE .DEBATE ON CONTRACTS.
IT is quite natural and quite right that the Opposition should make the most of any financial blundering in the management of a war to which-a majority of •them are in different degrees opposed. The weak point in every war is the waste it causes, and when, as in this case, the magnitude of the war was not foreseen, the waste is sure to seem even shocking to those who disapprove it. Had the Opposition, therefore, stated their case as strongly as possible, denounced the •unbusinesslike character of the arrangements they thought, wasteful, and demanded a solemn pledge of full inquiry the moment the war was over, the sympathy of the thoughtful would have gone with them, and they would have given just the check to i e extravaance which in war time is always needed. Their methods, however, have been so bad and so ill-advised that the country has ceased to sympathise, and will endorse the crushing vote by which their main proposal was on Tuesday night rejected. That proposal—to hold the inquiry now—was clearly indefensible, and this for reasons other than those upon which the Government mainly relied. It is not only that officers already over- whelmed with work must have been paralysed by an inquiry which would have involved enormous masses of detail ; that indispensable men, including Lord Kitchener—who himself concluded the Cold Storage con- tract — must have been summoned home to explain their motives, or cross-examined by Commission in the presence of fighting armies,—a really ridiculous suggestion; and that every soldier in the fighting-line would have been set discussing the prices of his supplies ; but there was real danger that the machine would stop. The engine-drivers would practically have been placed on trial for their lives before the station was reached. No one who understands the constitution of our society or the tone of the House of Commons can doubt that 'from the moment the inquiry opened the whole War Office would have felt that it was upon its trial, that its interest in every other matter would have been extinguished, that the war itself would have seemed a trivial affair compared with the grander question whether this or that sub- department or this or that individual had condoned cor- ruption or foolishly permitted waste. The quarrels, the recriminations, the doubts, the efforts to remove doubt, would have been endless, and would. have been fatal, first of all to that " brotherhood," as they call it on the Conti- nent, without which an army is a pointless machine, and then to every kind of efficiency. If there is waste, resolve to stop it, and punish it ; but it is not while his guests are arriving that a wise host puts his household on trial. He puts up with the waste, if he has any brains or temper, for one more day at least.
This demand was simply foolish, and was perceived by the country to be such ; but the ' Opposition made another mistake, which it is more difficult to make quite clear. The English are a businesslike people, but they are nevertheless apt to be bewildered by large figures, have, in fact, something between a suspicion and an awe of them. To tell them that Messrs. Blank have made millions is at once to make them suspicious of Messrs. Blank and of all who, dealt with them. The Opposition have not been above availing themselves of this weakness, and have bandied about stories of millions made in contracts as if the millions proved the immorality. They forget that the profit on a great transaction must always seem a great profit. Sir H. Campbell-Baunerman, for instance, states that the expenditure on contracts has been £120,000,000, and then is horrified because millions have been made by contractors. But even 10 per cent. on X120,000,000 is £12,000,000, and great contractors who have to stake not only their own fortunes, but those of their business allies, on vast and complicated operations in which failure is visited with intense opprobrium are rarely content with that • percentage. They ought to be, say the quasi- patriotic journalists, or with 3 per cent., becabse the interests of the country require that display of self- abnegation. Is not that, to put it plainly, nonsense akin to the demand that no charitable undertaking should be taxed ? It amounts to this, that great contractors, besides paying all their heavy taxes, should subscribe the millions they would have made by other employ- ments of their capital to the war. Why should they, any more than anybody else ? Well then, say the critics, employ smaller men. Are smaller men content with less proportionate gain ? We will leave any business man in England to give the answer. The plain truth, the very disagreeable truth, is that enormous transactions, and especially transactions which are at once enormous and hurried and of vital importance, can only be undertaken by men with great command of capital. If the little men take the contracts, they either scamp the work, or they underlet till nobody is responsible, or—and this is the regular course—they go to the capitalists and ask to be "financed." The capitalists thereupon " finance " them, that is, lend them great sums at short notice, and having to encounter a double risk, the risk of their money and of the little man's incompetence, they charge twice the profit they would have asked if they had been directly respon- sible. Then, it is said, let the Government do its work for itself, feed its own armies, breed its own horses, main- tain its own transport service in readiness. That is a practicable alternative if the country will bear the frightful cost of keeping up efficient establishments with nothing to do against the arrival of emergencies. But the country will not bear it, will not, for instance, keep up a fleet of vessels fitted for conveying scores of thousands of horses when the horses are not required. No Department can be so maintained that it could dispense with contractors, even if it were sure that millions would be saved in an emergency, and it is very doubtful if they would be saved. The Department could not find gentlemen sufficient to do the work, and the rougher agents it would appoint in a hurry would rob worse than any contractors' agents do, for this very definite reason. The contractors dare pay their agents in proportion to the money passing through their hands, and the State dare not. Imagine the scene in the House of Commons if Mr. Brodrick proposed to pay anybody £50,000 for controlling the expenditure in three months of twenty millions ! Mr. Pierpont Morgan would think that rather mean pay.
Is it the deduction, then, that in war the State must necessarily be plundered ? To a certain extent that is the 'bitter truth. A class have a• monopoly of the means of feeding, moving, and supplying great armies, and when those things must be done, and done without twenty-four hours' failure, they will insist on being largely paid. Louis XIV. had absolute power. Napoleon had absolute power and the greatest brain for the purpose in Europe. Both tried to stop overcharges, both failed utterly, and both fell back on the iniquitous device of letting the contractors overcharge, and then plunder- ing them of their gains. War will never be waged cheaply except through requisitions ; nor will its inferior employ6s, who are not paid either in distinctions or in fame, ever refrain as a body from seeking proli t. What the State can do is to pay liberally for special, and, above all, hurried, work ; punish agents for malversation, not with dismissals but with sentences of penal servitude; and insist with the rigour of private dealers that every- thing paid for shall be "up to sample." That, after ail, is in war the first thing to be sought. The food, the horses, the forage, the transport, the clothing, the arms, everything should be so good that the armies have always their full power, and can terminate war without un- necessary delays. It is time which in war really empties Treasuries, and the way to economise time is to see that every• soldier has the means of using all the potential efficiency that is in him. The Government has secured that efficiency, though doubtless at excessive cost; and the House, in supporting it and so placing efficiency first, has made one more exhibition of the cool businesslike sense which Englishmen approve.
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