RED TAPE AT THE FOOD DEPARTMEN.

Hokitika Guardian, 8 July 1919, Page 3

RED TAPE AT THE FOOD DEPARTMEN.

-MINISTRY’S COMIC SIDE.

in what she calls an “artless chronicle of twelve months’ work at the Ministry of Food 1 * Mrs C. S. Peel tells somo quaist stories of her experience of officialdom. One’s comfort, it appears, depended upon the size of one’s salary. Thus certain kinds of writingtables could be used only by those whose pay exceeded a certain sum. “It is whispered,” she said, “that another Ministry official, unpaid, and something approaching a millionaire, when put in charge of a section, petitioned humbly for a carpet and an umbrella stand. The carpet was refused, because he was not in receipt of the salary which entitled its owner to protect his feet from the chilly blast, but to make up for this, five months later, seven men from the Board of Works arrived to fit up stabling for 144 umbrellas !”

Changes were frequent at Grosvonor House. Mrs Peel gives us these snatches of conservation: “Where is So-and-so’s secretary now ?” “Oh, lie’s in the duchess’s bathroom.” “Yes, they’re in the nursery now.” “Where have Public Meals got to.” “They used to bo in No 9, but Exchange says Fish is there now,” and so forth. “I thought you were the greatest living authority on fish,” said a lady at the Ministry to a gentleman. ‘Precisely,” was the reply, “and that is why I am controlling mangel-wurzels!”