A Row About Slough.
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FROM information received (to employ a not unfamiliar trick of words), we are convinced that all is not as it should be between the various Powers that Be who still hold, or at least claim to hold, authority over the Government's mechanical transport establishment.
Indeed, there is considerable evidence (as has so frequently been the case in the past few years when everyone was overworked and nerves were always on edge), that two distinct departments, both of them so far as the public still knows, charged with the care of the country's military mechanical transport, are, 6 put it mildly, at loggerheads to such an extent that in the public interest someone quite high up will certainly have to step in before king and part the combatants.
The battle royal is for proprietary rights over the remaining stocks of vehicles and their spare components lying at various parts of the country to the account of the Government. We believe we are correct in stating that the War Department, as represented by Q.M.G., has definitely defied those Government officials, both semi-military and civilian, who claim authority of disposal on behalf of the so-called Ministry of Supply, which is, of course, in the main, the Ministry of Munitions. camouflaged as much as possible in the endeavour to pacify the public demand for the early displacement of the much-advertised limpets.
Much of this present squabble—and very unseemly it is—centres around the old Slough white elephant.
Those who are directly responsible for that orgy of amateur organization are sparing no pains in the endeavour to demonstrate how very useful indeed is this vast expenditure of public money. And, in the endeavour they are being very effectively assisted by certain civilian interests which have, not for the first time, been called in to impart some of the hustle for which they are reputed to be noteworthy to this gigantic effort to perpetuate departmental elephantiasis. The War Office, and particularly Q.M.G., dislikes this move intensely and is openly issuing counter instructions in opposition to bhose of the Ministry of Supply.
A-pretty spectacle in these days—particularly when we would all fain to be rid of the whole of this bureaucratic and muddling control. Would that there were someone strong enough 'to knock their two heads to -and hard !