HOW THE WAR OFFICE IS MANAGED.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CIII, Issue 12158, 23 March 1900, Page 2

HOW THE WAR OFFICE IS MANAGED.

(Tit-Bite.) Perhaps there is none of our home institutions which is more interesting to us at the present moment, and yet about which after all the public is more ignorant than, the War Office, the machinery of which is now, in consequence of the war in South Africa, working,at top speed.

The old building in Pall Mall which now, but only for a little while lor ger, is the Department’s head-quarters, ia not imposing in appearance, as the new one at Whitehall will be. In the eighteenth century it was called Schomberg House, and it was here that the famous artist Gainsborough had liis studio and did his work. Nowadays it is ill-suited to its present purpose. The writer in wandering about it had almost to grope along corridors and up oldfashioned staircases, and the rooms in which the hundreds of clerks and 1 typists work are not by. any means the most pleasant places in which, to. labour. Everywhere one sees tiny lockers or cupboards-in which are stored the letters and documents of decades. Possibly not one in-a. thousand will'ever be. required again, but there they are preserved on the off-chance of a sudefen ■ demand h}' an official or an M.P. for any one of them. There is such an air of mediocrity about the place that one starts in surprise when it is declared that the annual salaries paid to those belonging to the establishment amount to just on a quarter of a million sterling! THE PRECISE AMOUNT IS £248,300. The head of the concern, ■ and the man responsible for all that the War Office does and fails to do, is the Secretary of!State for War, who at the- present time, is Lord Lansdowne, with a salary of £SOOO per annum. He has the assistance of four private secretaries, two of whom, .however, fill purely honorary posts. After this .the organisation is divided into two departments, the Military and the Financial, with the Commander-iii-Chief supreme over the one and the Financial Secretary over the other. . • The Commander-in-Chief, Lord Wolseley, is salaried to the extent of £4500 per annum, has a private secretary in receipt of £6OO, and some expensive’ Aides-de-Camp. In his department are the Adju-tant-General, with his £2400 a year; the Quartermaster-General, with £2IOO ; and the Inspector-General of Fortifications and the Director-General of Ordnance the same, besides smaller inspectors and assistant-in-spectors galore with salaries varying from £SOO to £ISOO.

The Financial Secretary, Mr J. Powell Williams, M.P. (£1500) has under him the Accountant-General (£1500), the Director of Contracts (£1200), the Director of Clothing Factories (£1000), and the Director of Ordnance factories (£1800). An important offic'al also is the Permanent Under-Secre-tary, who will, unlike so many of his colleagues, draw his £2OOO a year though Governments come and go and the pendulum of power sways continually from Liberal to Conservative and from Conservative back to Liberal.

One of the busiest officials in the Parliamentary season is the Parliamentary UnderSecretary, Mr George Wyndham, who has to answer all the . questions of the'House of Commons ■'. , .3 RELATING TO WAR MATTERS. As has been remarked, it is the Secretary of State who is held to blame if anything goes wrong; but it is not to be supposed that he manages the War Office in any autocratic manner, or could do so if he wished; When any technical or official matter comes up for consideration he seeks the advice of the Commander-in-Chief or the head of one of, the departments, . and besides having the assistance of these he has an advisory council to which knotty questions may be referred and thoroughly discussed. This council consists of the Undersecretaries, the Financial Secretary, the Commander-in-Chief, the departmental chiefs, and any officers who may have expert knowledge of the subject of discussion.

The clerical work of the department is done by a veritable army of clerks, who, at the commencement of such a war as this, have a very busy time in the preparation of special army estimates. There are fifteen principal clerks at the War Office, who get from £7OO to £9OO per annum. The twenty next in order are remunerated with salaries varying from £450 to £650, and then follow about another hundred, who are variously , described as clerks, staff; clerks, supplementary clerks, and so on. Moreover, there are 183 clerks of the second division, eighty abstractors and assistants, 100 boy clerks.and copyists, and many lady typists. With such ai multitudinous staff on the premises it is only natural that the War Office should concern itself to some slight extent as to how best to keep it together during business hours, and add whatever is possible to the comfort of the employees. Yet it was so far behind the times that it was only .last year that it. . OPENED ITS OWN RESTAURANT . on the premises for the use of its own men, and for their use only, . . When it was opened, however, the writer was informed at the office it wais done well, and it became possible for the 'clerks and their superiors to lunch in good style there afprices below those of even second or third class London restaurants. Previously the House of Commons bad the reputation for being about the cheapest restaurant in the Metropolis, having regard to quality, but the War Office has now taken the lead in the matter. Chops, steaks, and cutlets may be had for sevenpence or eigbtpence, and a three or four course dinner for a modest eighteenpence. All classes mix jn the same dining-hall, so that sometimes you see a boy copyist at one table and a distinguished military officer at another. Reference has been made to the questions which the Parliamentary Under-Secretary has to answer in the House of Commons, and newspaper readers, who only see next morning that “Mr George Wyndham, in reply to Mr So-and-so, said that ,” with perhaps four or five lines following denying some rumour or other or supplying a few figures, have not tue least idea as to the trouble and anxiety to which officials at the War Oruce have been put during the preceding twenty-four hours in order that a proper reply might be given to the question. Usually only a day’s notice is given of the question,-and then it is.'immediately despatched to the W T ar Office, where sometimes many officials are engaged for hours in going through records and accounts .in search of the required information.. The questions range in subject and importance from a rumour of difficulties with another great Power to the exact amount of pension to a private soldier which is in arrears. Now and again the telegraph wires are employed for the purpose of answering a question, and sometimes information is brought by special cable, and VERY GREAT EXPENSE INVOLVED. A department of the War Office the working of which is shrouded in mystery, and about which the public are always very 7 curious, is the Military Intelligence, which might in less official language be called the “ Spy Department.’’ Parliament votes £40,000 annually to it, but how the money is spent the public are not privileged to know, and they seldom trouble, though just now this branch of our war organiscation is coming in for severe criticism in regard to the under-estimation of the Boer forces and implements of war. The head of the branch receives £ISOO a year,; and there are several -other officials with salaries from £300; upwards; ■ ■ '.v. ", ■