CHAPTER X. 



PROPOSED SYSTEM. 



A. EXTERNAL RELA TIONS. 



It will be seen from what has been said that the main difficulty 

 in the present system arises from the overlapping of the really 

 distinct accountabilities of the Commanding Officer and the 

 Ordnance Storekeeper ; and that the Current Service Return has 

 dwindled in size and importance because of the facility with which 

 the officer making it could rid himself of whatever responsibility 

 it imposed. 



The responsibility of the Commanding Officer for supplies in 

 current service is in its essence precisely like that of the Ordnance 

 Storekeeper for supplies in store, and should be assumed and 

 discharged by precisely similar means. The only difference be- 

 tween them is, that the stores in current service are subject to 

 alteration in name and condition from use, while those in store are 

 only subject to change in condition from the effects of time. 



The escape from the dilemma between the efficient working of 

 the arsenal as a whole, and the personal responsibility of the 

 Ordnance Storekeeper, is to be found in expanding the scope of 

 the Current Service Return so as to make it include not only all 

 transactions which can be performed by the Storekeeper, but also 

 those over which, the Commanding Officer being himself a party 

 to them, he, the Commanding Officer, has properly an exclusive 

 jurisdiction. 



These last are the expenditures of material. 



It seems hardly necessary to repeat that the function of a Store- 

 keeper is to keep stores. Hence the anomaly of his discharging 

 himself of the responsibility for stores placed in his keeping by 

 reporting them " expended," as he now does. Neither he nor 

 any of his agents have the power to expend stores, or in any way 



