INTERNAL RELATIONS. 67 



Annual abstracts and Statements into the receipts, issues and 

 balances shown by the Annual Return. The name has been 

 written about fifteen times. 



I do not cavil at these methods, which only show the extent to 

 which a faithful observance of the regulations has in one case at 

 least been carried ; but I seek to improve the regulations them- 

 selves, by facilitating the transactions which they require recorded ; 

 by defining and augmenting the responsibilities which they are 

 meant to impose ; and by greatly diminishing the labor which 

 they now compel. 



For, leaving out of consideration the trusteeship of an arsenal 

 administration, and considering it simply as a workshop, subject 

 to the same conditions and necessities which prevail elsewhere, 

 it will be evident that up to at least the first sixteen acts recorded, 

 there has been done an unnecessary amount of writing, at a 

 considerable cost of delay, delay due, not only to the time 

 consumed in the routine performance of these acts, but following 

 the failure of any one of the six agents named to properly 

 second the acts of his predecessor in the series. 



The Commanding Officer has to approve three times acts 

 done to carry out his own orders. Does it not seem, that in 

 his own jurisdiction, at least, his approval of an order should 

 carry with it that of the means required for its execution? 



The consequence of such a multiplication of precautions is, 

 that when stores are urgently needed, the prescribed forms are 

 disregarded, and the stores are gotten and used as they would 

 be in any private establishment, and the papers are made right 

 afterwards. Would it not be better to have no knots to cut or 

 unravel, but a simple, exact method for every case, so easy to 

 follow that no one would want to leave it for another? 



Returning to the example : the Commanding Officer may 

 suspend his action on some request, or may refuse it altogether, 

 at any one of the three stages in which he acts. But how is the 

 foreman to know it, except by laboriously searching the books 

 of the office, whenever he may have a chance? The Command- 

 ing Officer may intend to ask for explanations ; but in the great 



