Chaos at the War Office.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 12021, 21 March 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

Chaos at the War Office.

Practically a condition of chaos exists in Pall Mali jnst now, according to a correspondent of the " Daily Chronicle." Some time ago it -was decided to abolish civilian clerkships at the War Office, and to replace the civilians hitherto employed with soldiers and pensioners. This was the great; solution that was propounded for the recruiting difficulty. It has already resulted in producing a stale of disruption "at the headquarters of the Army, and the recruiting problem is as great as eTer. Correspondence, and business generally, is getting woefully in arrear, and it is stated on crodible authority that despite all the socalled reforms that "have beea effected in the last five years, it is now more than ever difficult to obtain a reply, within a reasonable time, to any communication addressed to the Department. A general officer charged with the control of an important department of the War Office thus described his position a few days ago to our correspondent : "They have taken away from me," he said, " all my trained civilian clerks, and replaced them with old soldiers—officers in some of the senior positions, and noncommissioned officers (sergeants and warrant officers) in those that are regarded as being of lesser importance. These men ?.re entirely incompetent. In the majority of cases they are inadequately educated for the duties to which they have been appointed, and coming here as they do, at forty and even more years of age. they are then far too old to learn. Their training in their regiments—-to particularise the case of the majority of the non commissioned officers—has been that of orderly room clerks, and so forth, which is almost entirely routine, and completely unsuits them for the proper performance of the duties that are supposed to, and should, devolve upon the clerical staff of the War Office. They are, and I remark it with very great regret, unfit to be entrusted with the composition of a letter. As for the compilation of a report it is far beyond their abilities ; the preparation of a precis of a batch of documents would bs a task they would not know how to embark on, even if some of them knew what a precis meant. All these things my old staff of civilian clerks—who came to us as youths after an examination which guaranteed their educational fitness for the position they aspired to—were thoroughly capable of. The consequence to the country of my being supplied with such inadequate and incapable assistance ig that I have to do these things myself, as far as it is possible for one person to do them, and being chained to this office as I am, it is impossible for me to perform the inspection duties in different parts of the cour.try which attach to my appointment."