The debate in the House of Commons on Tuesday on
fraudulent Army contractors was not altogether satisfactory. It was quite evident from the facts adduced during the dis- cussion that although, as Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman said, great frauds on the War Office are not frequent, small frauds are. The regular way' is for a firm to cheat the Depart- ment, to be struck off the list of persons with whom Governments will make contracts, and to reappear under an alias which the Office, from ignorance or indifference, does not detect. Mr. Powell Williams made an adroit though not convincing defence, and pleaded that the complete publicity which is recommended as the beat punishment might inflict injury on respectable firms whose supplies were rejected for some minute fault. He may have been right in that, but he
pub himself and the Department too much on the defensive, leaving the impression that he thought a percentage of fraud almost unavoidable. The country thinks it would be quite avoidable if the cheating of the Department were treated as a kind of treason—which it is—and punished with five years' penal servitude.
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