The Select Committee on National Expenditure in its fifth Report,
whioh was published last Saturday, tells the strangeastory of the efforts of the War Office, the Admiralty, and the Ministry of Munitions to obtain a British supply of cellulose acetate, the prin- cipal ingredient in " dope " for aeroplane wings. It is a sad example of the muddle, waste, and inefficiency caused by lack of organization in the offices concerned, and especially in Mr. Churchill's Depart- ment. The Government induced a Swiss firm from Basle to set up a factory in England, offering the most absurdly generous terms and warning off all competitors, including a well-known French factory at Lyons, which, in the Committee's opinion, supplies a better product. The British Cellulose Company, as the Anglo- Swiss concern is called, has committed itself to an expenditure of £30500,000 for buildings and plant, and now enjoys a complete monopoly, the value of which may be judged from the fact that each sixpenny share in the parent company was exchanged for fourteen and a half one-pound shares in the present company. The Select Committee recommends the Government to take over the factory at once and to secure an alternative source of supply.
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