DEFENCE DEPARTMENT.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17859, 3 August 1918, Page 8

DEFENCE DEPARTMENT.

The report of the Royal Commission on the administration of tho Defence Department is a very bulky document and, of course, a very important one. Elsewhere we have indicated its scope and printed in full the recommendations of the Commission. It ought, to be said at the outset that while the Commission found plenty of room for reform and recommends some far- " reaching and extensive changes the report as a whole is very far from being a wholesale condemnation of tho Department, which has come through the ordeal of the investigation remarkably well. The vast organisation that now exists grew out of the comparatively small, department that in tho days before the war controlled the territorials and senior cadets of the Dominion. The machinery in existence in 1914 was quite inadequate to deal with the enormous undertaking that was involved in our participation in the war, and so new machinery and a • complex new organisation had to be created. Partly it was improvised, partly it was added- to as occasion arose. 'The staff had to be gathered from all quarters, and as trained hands were notl. available it was necessary for the Government to employ untrained people and to train them while the work was actually in progress. In these circumstances overlapping was bound to occur, inefficiency might have been expected to be the rule rather than the exception, and extravagance was inevitable. The Commission entered on its investigation in the fourth year of the war, set to work to discover where economies could be effect- ■ ed and examined th© whole Department in the light of experience gained during the war. This investigation was necessary and the changes recommended . are, for tho most part, obviously desirable. But it is just as well to give the Department the credit that is due to it. It commenced it's war work under two serious disabilities. Many of the officers whose services would ■ have been invaluable in New Zealand were required for service abroad, and from the very beginning the Department had to utilise in new capacities men who had had no training for the duties suddenly imposed upon them. Then the Department, naturally enough, endeavoured to reproduce in New Zealand a small edition of the Imperial organisation. "We know now that in both respects it could have 1 done better. It should have commandeered the services of the best organisers in the Dominion, and it jhould have based its organisation on ■business experience and not on a model concerning which the great majority of the officers employed had little knowledge. But it is easy to make that comment now. It is easy to point to a particular individual as receiving . seven or eight pounds a week for a service that in commercial life would be well rewarded with four pounds, and to quote this as an example of military inefficiency and extravagance. These things were not obvious in 1914, and the Department followed the very iiatural course of making us© of tho men that it already had at its dis- ' posal. We may point, again, to two great branches that have grown up in Wellington during the war, the recruiting branch and what is commonly known as Q.M.G.4. Both those branches had very small beginnings; one is dealing now with the enrolment and classification of the National Reserve, and the other looks after the finances of the Expeditionary Force. One will sooner or later beeom c merged !$ a. State Department, because it is necessary tihat tho work it is doing 1 'should, in a large measure, be con-

tinned after the war. Th© other will presumably come to an end as a separate branch when, demobilisation is complete. The Commission recommends "that even now the recruiting branch should b© taken over by the Government Statistician, and we hope that the Government will give effect to the recommendation. The more comprehensive reform of which this is a part is not likely, it seems, to be adopted. The Commission : recommends, in effectl, that the whole of the administrative services, apart from those ooncerned with' discipline and purely military detail, should bo placed under a general officer, selected, of course, for his organising and business ability, that the Adjutant-General's branch should be abolished and that the services at present under this branch should be combined with those under tho Quartermaster-General. It is .perfectly true, as the Defence 2Vtini&ter comments in his memorandum, that the work of tho Adjutant-General's department would still have to be done, but obviously what the Commission is aiming at is that there should bo a drastic reorganisation of the administrative services on business lines. The attitude of the Minister, we gather, is antagonistic to this reform, and we regret to find it so, because unquestionably large economies could be effected without in the least! diminishing the efficiency of the services- With the details of the recommendations we need not deal just now. The evidence given before the Commission made it certain that, important recommendations would be made in regard to the system of training in the camps and the general control. The extraordinary anomalies in pay and allowances were bound to come under comment and they ought to be adjusted. In certain other matters the recommendations, though reasonable in themselves, are likely to make no strong appeal to military sympathies, because they suggest that New Zealand should introduco innovations that would be in conflict with Imperial practice, and we are just afraid that this excuse will be advanced for the failure to carry out changes that ought to be made. When the Commission has completed its criticisms, however, it pays the :New Zealand Defence Department a very high compliment. In all essentials, it says, the Department has succeeded. We know that to be tho case, but the verdictl of an independent commission, after a most thorough investigation, is a most'welcome endorsement of the general belief. The Commission is sparing in the praise of individuals, but the achievement of the Dominion in raising so large an army, equipping it, training it', transporting it, and maintaining it efficiently, is proof enough of the enthusiasm, ability and devotion to duty of the responsible officers and of the energy and wholehearted patriotism of the Minister in charge.