sentatives of the three Fighting Services were asked to sit, and were in a majority, and the Sub-Committees' reports were adopted by the Main Committee.

STATIONERY.

4. Apart from from the printing presses directly under the Stationery Office, and presses for printing meteorological and Admiralty charts, there are presses at the Foreign Office, India Office and War Office. The two former are run in conjunction to some extent, and the India Office press is not a charge on the Estimates. The Foreign Office press does work both for the Foreign Office and the Cabinet, often of an urgent nature, and your Committee believe its separate existence is justified. The press in the War Office is a small one employing 24 men, who are part of the Stationery Office staff, and it was established as a temporary expedient to cope with arrears of printing during the time of the Crimean War. The Stationery Office are of opinion that the work of this press could be done more economically at Harrow or Bethnal Green, but your Committee, after considering all the evidence, doubt if any appreciable economy would result, particularly as the War Office press is engaged on technical military work. The Stationery Office also suggested that economy would result if these three presses and their Bethnal Green press could be amalgamated in one building in a central position near Whitehall, but in view of the cost and difficulty of obtaining a suitable site, your Committee think this proposal is too problematical to be considered seriously at the present time.

5. The War Office and Air Ministry each maintains separate Stores, where they keep certain technical books and official forms, both for mobilization and instructional purposes. They seek to justify the existence of these Stores partly on the ground that the Stationery Office has not sufficient knowledge of Units' technical requirements to be able to distribute text books, and partly on the ground that they must have absolute priority in time of War. Your Committee do not attach great importance to the first argument, as technical text books. published by other Departments are issued direct by the Stationery Office, but the latter argument must carry great weight. The Stationery Office proposed that these Stores should be absorbed into their Manchester Depot, but as this depot only supplies that part of the country north of a line from the Severn to the Wash, it would be of little value to the Air Force or the Army, the Units of which are mostly stationed south of that line. Your Committee, therefore, make no general recommendation on this question, but they would point out that

it is almost impossible to find out the total cost and number of the staff employed by the War Office from their Estimates.

They desire also to make a minor recommendation on the same subject. The Air Ministry Store only handles about a quarter of the indents and tonnage dealt with by the War Office Store, but their staff is nearly the same size. It should be reduced at an early date to reasonable dimensions.

6. In their examination of the Stationery Office your Committee were somewhat handicapped by the fact that the Departmental Committee appointed by the Treasury in 1923 to examine into the working of the Stationery Office had not yet reported. Your Committee were informed that no meeting had been held for about a year, whilst they understand the expenditure to date has amounted to about a £1,000.*

HOSPITALS AND MEDICAL SERVICES.

7. One of the recommendations of the Mond-Weir Committee was that a Joint Medical Committee representative of the three Fighting Services and the Ministry of Fensions should be set up to secure greater co-ordination. This Committee was appointed in July, 1923, but it has only met eight times in three years. The Committee attempted to obtain some standardisation of medical returns for the three Fighting Services, but their labours only resulted in the combination of two of the forms used by the Army and Air Force. Your Committee were also informed that this Committee had never been able to consider the relative cost of the hospitals maintained by their respective Departments because the methods of costing were different. They strongly recommend that similar methods of costing should be adopted, and that, as far as possible, all forms serving a similar purpose should be standardised.

8. Although the Mond-Weir Committee recommended that greater use should be made of Army mechanical transport by the Navy and Air Force, your Committee regret to find that no steps appear to have been taken in this direction, apart from some experiments in the standardisation of ambulances, which are still going on.

9. One of the functions of the Joint Medical Committee is to consider the amalgamation of hospitals where possible. The amalgamation of the hospitals at Gibraltar and Chatham was carried out in 1922, before the Joint Committee was set up. Since that date a scheme for the amalgamation of the three hospitals at Hongkong and Kowloon has been prepared, but has been delayed owing to recent events in that part of the world. Schemes for the amalgamation of the Naval and Military

Since this paragraph was approved your Committee have been informed that a further meeting of the above Committee was held on the 21st July.

hospitals at Devonport and Plymouth and the two Air Force hospitals at Bagdad are under consideration, and your Committee hope they will be pressed forward. Your Committee also recommend that further consideration should be given to the possibility of combining the Army hospitals at Dover and Shorncliffe, of accommodating the wives and children of Army ranks stationed at Chatham in a wing of the Naval Hospital there, and abolishing the small Army Hospital still maintained for this purpose. Your Committee

also consider that the Military hospital at Cosham might be absorbed either by Netley or the Naval Hospital at Haslar. Under existing circumstances the number of equipped beds maintained at both Netley and Haslar is too large, even allowing for the Trooping season and should be reduced.

The Naval and Military Hospitals at Malta are only some five miles apart, and there is ample vacant accommodation in the Naval Hospital for Army purposes. With modern motor transport such a distance is not insurmountable, and the only other argument against amalgamation advanced by the War Office, namely, that the Admiralty found their hospital too small for their own requirements is not correct. Your Committee consider this question should receive early consideration.

10. Your Committee investigated the scale of hospital accommodation provided for the Royal Air Force They noticed that there did not appear to be any general fixed scale, even as a basis of calculation, of hospital accommodation to establisment. Where accommodation was required it was provided on the basis of the requirements of the year immediately preceding that in which the demand was met. This does not appear to the Committee to be a scientific or economical method of laying down a scale of hospital accommodation.

11. The Ministry of Pensions is unable to utilise Military hospitals to any appreciable extent, as they are not situated in large centres of population, where most of the ex-Service men reside.

Your Committee consider, however, that a section of the surgical hospital at Roehampton should be set aside for nurses. and the small nurses' hospital at Fernbank closed down.

FINANCE AND ACCOUNT STAFFS.

12. There has been a large increase of staff in the Financeand Accounts Department of the Admiralty and the War Office. These increases are defended on the grounds of the general instability of markets, and the fluctuation of prices, which render it more difficult to enter into long-term contracts, and necessitate more clerical and office work. It is also contended that the application of the sliding scale to the cost of living bonus to

wages and salaries, the number of pensions paid under the noneffective Votes, the effects of social legislation, such as the Widows' Pensions Act, cause increased work in all departments.

13. The Admiralty state that there is still a great deal of work to do in connection with the medal and prize distribution arising out of the War. In this connection, your Committee have been assured that the work is nearing completion, which should result in a small reduction of staff. Your Committee were also given to understand that a certain amount of staff is to be retained for the completion of a Medal Roll in connection with the Great War. As there are records in the Admiralty of the recipients of such medals, it would seem unnecessary to keep any additional staff for this work, which is purely of an historical and sentimental value, and could be kept as "stand by " work for the regular staff.

Your Committee also think it might be worth while for some enquiry to be made as to the increase of personnel on the Naval side of the Admiralty staff.

14. Your Committee are satisfied that there have been very considerable economies made in the War Office staff, and they are informed that the abolition of the Corps of Accountants made a saving of no less than 800. They are of opinion that the relatively small number of pensioners paid by the War Office does not justify any increase of staff on those grounds.

SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH.

15. With regard to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, your Committee are satisfied that valuable work for the commercial and industrial life of the nation, apart from its services to the Military Departments, is performed by this Department, and that due regard to economy is maintained. The Committee, however, feel that it would be reasonable, when doing work for private industry, that calculations should be made so as to include some charge for initial capital outlay on the Department, in addition to the actual cost involved in the research or investigations undertaken.

Your Committee are also convinced that more attention could be given to prevent overlapping of the work of Scientific and Industrial Research undertaken by the Admiralty, the Air Ministry, and by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. It is felt that no opportunity should be lost to bring this work, so far as is possible and consistent with economy and efficiency, under the control of one Department.

CONTRACTS.

16. The Contracts Co-ordinating Committee was set up in December, 1920, and consists of the Directors of Contracts for the three Fighting Services. It was established in order to

The

secure economy and regulate purchases and supply. Treasury is not represented on this Committee, and your Committee understand representatives of the Post Office, Office of Works and other Departments only attend when invited to do

On the recommendation of the Mond-Weir Committee five technical co-ordinating Committees for the three Fighting Services have also been set up dealing with :(i) Foodstuffs.

(ii) Clothing and textiles.

(iii) Mechanical transport.
(iv) General stores.

(v) Medical stores.

These Committees deal with questions of standardisation and inspection, and other Government Departments are represented on some of them.

Whilst some progress has been made by these Committees towards closer co-ordination, your Committee wish to make the following observations and recommendations.

17. A special Committee, representative of the three Fighting Departments, the Post Office, Office of Works, and Board of Trade, meets periodically to consider the allocation of all oil contracts, other than those for fuel oil for the Navy, and this procedure has resulted in economy. Your Committee find, however, that no similar procedure is adopted in regard to purchases of coal and coke, although they were informed in evidence that the question had been under consideration. As the three Fighting Departments and the Office of Works all purchase large quantities of coal, and the prices paid by them vary considerably, your Committee recommend that coal purchases should be dealt with on the same lines as oil purchases in future. They would specially draw attention to the fact that economy would result if the Department requiring the largest supply in any district contracted for other Government Departments requiring smaller supplies in the same neighbourhood.

18. The Mond-Weir Committee recommended the development of the Agency system, whereby one Department, which is in a better position to obtain certain goods, supplies other Departments. In particular they drew attention to the possibility of the Office of Works supplying furniture to the Fighting Departments, and recommended that the question should receive immediate investigation by the appropriate technical co-ordinating Committee. The Office of Works informed your Committee that the question had received consideration, but that the position was exactly the same as when the recommendation was made. Although the technical Committee recommended that the Office of Works should purchase furniture for the Service. Departments, the War Office disagreed with the recommendation on the ground that the Office of Works made an administrative charge for their services. The Office of Works is already