ARSENAL ORGANIZATION. 29 



elsewhere, so long as he runs no risk from its leaving his charge 

 without warrant. 



Now, if the Commanding Officer were a permanent fixture in 

 the shops, no harm would result in practice, for whatever his 

 agents needed from the storekeeper, he could procure. But he 

 is not and should not be a fixture. The mere ordering of sup- 

 plies from store is too small a matter to interfere with the higher 

 duties of his office : he should be as little confined by such merely 

 clerical duties, and as free to give at all times to all portions of 

 his command the active supervision which any of it may require, 

 as if no such person as the storekeeper existed. 



What are the consequences of the existing dual administra- 

 tion? Strictly speaking, the Commanding Officer should only 

 draw exactly what material he requires for any particular pur- 

 pose. If he needs a pound of bar iron to make a forging, ^ 

 quart of oil to mix some paint, he must draw just that pound 

 of iron, just that quart of oil, and no more, and must give his 

 written order for it in each case. Of course, this condition is 

 impossible, so that in practice supplies are drawn from store in 

 bulk, either when purchased or soon after, and, as a means of 

 accounting for their disappearance from the accounts, are imme- 

 diately " expended " on the most probable objects : no other 

 way seems possible. The portion not actually consumed is kept 

 in the shops or about the post on no one's papers : it may be 

 used, wasted or stolen ; no one can ever tell. Practically it is 

 used for miscellaneous repairs about the post, until, at the end 

 of the fiscal year, if a proper inventory is made, it is taken up 

 on the papers as " found on post, in excess of quantity called 

 for by the return." If no inventory is taken, it accumulates until 

 the appearance on the return of issues of material of which none 

 was previously reported on hand, requires either the adjustment 

 of the papers to meet this special case or the taking of a new 

 inventory. I once took up thus about 4,000 pounds of bar steel, 

 worth from twenty- five to forty cents a pound, the result of 

 years of " expenditure," and yet we were constantly buying more. 



If this be true for small stores like steel, oil, tools, etc., that 



