A Conference on national expenditure was held in London on
Tuesday, when indignant attacks were made on Mr. Churchill. The conference professed to be non-party, but it was mainly composed of Liberals. Lord Welby said that Ministers bad become the mere tools of experts and thatthere was no proper control over expenditure. Sir Algernon West demanded retrenchment in the Civil Service. But the main attack of the meeting was against naval expenditure. Mr. F. W. Hirst declared that the common sense of the country was in revolt, and that Mr. Churchill's "Naval bombast" was offensive to the taste and ruinous to the purse. Sir Sydney Olivier, Permanent Secretary to the Board of Agri- culture, moved a resolution calling on the friends of economy to hold meetings all over the country. The departments representing the arts of peace were told that they could not have "a single penny" because the whole of the surplus was "wanted for aeroplanes and other similar expenditure."
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