TOPICS of the DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 167, 27 July 1901, Page 1

TOPICS of the DAY.

(Prom Our Special Correspondent.)

LONDON, June 14

THE CIRCUMLOCUTION

(ALIAS WAR) OFFTCE

A THING OF SHREDS AND

PATCHES,

Nearly half a century ago Charles Dickens wrote in "Little Dorrit": "If another Gunpowder Plot had been discovered half an hour before the

lighting of the match, nobody would have been justified in saving the Parliament, until there had been half a score of boards, half a bushel of minutes, several sacks of official memoranda, and a family vault full of ungrarninatieal correspondence on the part of the Circumlocution Office."

He mig-ht without exaggeration have used the same language at the beginning of the 20th. century with regard to the War Office. Listen to the

criticism with, which the committee appointed just before Christmas, and presided, over by Mr C. E. Dawkins, opens its prompt and practical report: "The general structure of War Office organisation has been built up piecemeal, as the result of constant changes and compromises and principles of administration and of business have been too ' frequently subordinated to temporary exigencies or personal and political considerations.

. . . . These evils have been enormously augmented owing- to the government of the army being mainly carried on by a vast system of minute regulations which tend to destroy the responsibility of general officers and suppress initiative and individuality in all ranks. The complexity of regulations is now so great that thedr interpretation alone leads to a mass of useless correspondence. This state of affairs contitutes a grave detriment to the public service. The practice of makiitg endless references to obtain authority, and reluctance to take direct action, are inevitable consequences. In the Admiralty it is possible to know where to go for a decision, and suboi >'tnate officials there promptly assume the responsibilities delegated to them, but the task of obtaining1 a decision at the War Office is often difficult and protracted. The mass of unnecessary routine work within the War Office is so great as to absorb the energies of the staff, which is generally overworked, and high officials engrossed in routine have not sufficient time to devote to questions of real importance. Matters of policy are, therefore, not adequately considered. The necessary sense of proportion is lost, and the training and preparation of the array for war must inevitably suffer."

It is the same old story all through the report. The headquarters staff and the geneTals are too busy pingponging at one another in arguments on the correct interpretation of reditape regulations, in endorsing minutes on documents, in filling up blue paper forms, and in haggling- over the expenditure of a penny postage stamp to have any time left in which to organise and train the army.

"Reform it altogether," is the committee's prescription, but the committee is, by the terms of its appointment, precluded from the consideration of "any organic changes in the constitution of tine War Office." We are to botch up the old bottles and to pour in the strong new wine of common sense and decentralisation.

Space is too short to attempt to abstract the committee's report, which repeats with damna.ble and damning iteration, in its reference to almost every department, the words congestion., excessive centra-lisation, dilatoriness, destruction of responsibility, the overlapping of functions. Three military departments deal with, the provision of rifle ranges.

Business men who want to see how far removed from a business undertaking a great State department of a nation of shopkeepers can be should skim the 480 bulky pages of the Blue Book containing the evidence and the committee's report. It will amuse and disgust them.

In effect the committee says if the War Office were only administered on elementary business principles, it might be successful. The committee make nineteen recommendations for reform, the principal of which may be thus summarised:—

Abolish the present system of ruling tihe army by minute regulations and elaborate ■ reports, which conduce to centralisation and to excessive correspondence.

Simplify all such regulations as cannot be dispensed with. '

Define the powers and duties of the heads of departments and their relations to each other, and give them responsibility for the interpretation of regulations.

Place a branch of the AccountantGeneral's department in close touch with each spending- department, -o ds to give the head od! that depart men! financial advice and direct knowledge of the progress of expenditure uniter his votes.

Simplify the company pay lists and relieve the soldier from small stoppages which give rise to discontent and misunderstanding.

Enlarge the powers and responsibilities of general officers comminking districts so as to secure decentralisation to the fullest extent possible in the special circumstances of tihe British Army.

Provide an adequate staff for the military districts so as to enable tin administrative business devolving upon the general officers commanding to ■be transacted without, wiilthdjrawin.g' them from their main duty of training and preparing the army for war.

Kelieye the War Office by decentralisation of a mass of routine work and correspondence which now absorbs the energies of high officials and prevents their due consideration of important questions of military policy.

Establish a War Office "Roard (consisting of the heads of ail the great departments civil) pn a permanent basis with, clearly denned duties and

powers, which, acting1 under the authority of the Secretary of vState, and without in any way detracting from the individual responsibilities of iho Comimander-inrChdef, and all the military heads of departments, will control and .supervise the business of the, War Office as a whole and secure thft harmonious working of all the great departments, civil and military.