through the director of navy contracts. In practice the
main business of the Stores Department is to see to the
provision of stores for the navy, and to the proper supply
of these at all the establishments, and for this purpose its
officials direct the movements of storeships, and arrange
for the despatch of colliers, the director being charged to
be ``careful to provide for His Majesty's ships on foreign
stations, and for the necessary supplies to foreign yards.''
Another important business of the director of stores is the
examination of the store accounts of ships as well as some other
accounts. Although the director of stores is really in the
department of the controller, he is supervised in regard
to the coaling of the fleet by the junior naval lord. The
inspector of dockyard expense accounts has been alluded
to. He is the officer charged with keeping a record of
expenditure at the dockyards and of supervising expense accounts.
Expenditure.
It may be useful to add a note concerning the spending of the
money. Within the controller's department, as has been
explained, are centred the more important spending branches of the
admiralty. While the work of designing ships and preparing
plans is in progress, the director of stores, the director
of dockyards and other officials of that department concerned
are making preparation for the work. The necessary stores,
comprising almost every imaginable class of materials, are
brought together, and the director of stores is specially charged
to obtain accurate information in regard to requirements.
He is not, however, a purchasing officer, that work being
undertaken by the director of navy contracts, who is concerned
with the whole business of supply, except in regard to hulls
and machinery of ships built by contract, and the special
requirements of the director of works. At the same time,
the civil departments of the admiralty being held responsible
for the administration of the votes they compile, it is their
duty to watch the outlay of money, and to see that it is well
expended, the accountant-general being directed to assist
them in this work. The system is closely jointed and well
administered, but it possesses a very centralized character,
which interferes to some extent with flexible working, and
with the progress of necessary repairs, especially in foreign
yards. In so far as ships given out to contract are concerned
(and the same is the case in regard to propelling machinery
built by contract), the director of navy contracts plays no
part, the professional business being conducted through the
controller of the navy, who is advised thereon by the director
of naval construction and the engineer-in-chief. The work
conducted in private establishments is closely watched by the
admiralty officials, and is thoroughly tested, but, mutatis
mutandis, the system in regard to contract-built ships is
practically the same as that which prevails in the dockyards.
4. Naval Finance: The Accountant-General's Department.-- The
subject of naval finance is one of great complexity and of vast
importance. The large sums of money with which the admiralty
deals in the way of both estimates and expenditure, amounting
recently to about L. 30,000,000 annually, implies the existence
of the great organization which is found in the department of
the accountant-general of the navy. Under the authority of
the first lord, the parliamentary and financial secretary is
responsible for the finance of the admiralty in general, and
for the estimates and the expenditure, the accounts and the
purchases, and for all matters which concern the relations
of the admiralty to the treasury and to other departments
of the government; and in all the practical and advisory
work the accountant-general is his officer, acting as his
assistant, with the director of naval contracts who, under
the several lords, is concerned with the business of purchase.
The organization of the accountant-general's department has
undergone many changes, and the resulting condition is the
outcome of various modifications which have had for their
purpose to give to this officer a measure of financial
control. There have been various views as to what the
duties of the accountant- general should be. After the
reorganization of the admiralty by Sir James Graham in
1832, the accountant-general was regarded as a recording
and accounting officer, wholly concerned with receipt and
expenditure. His duties were limited to the auditing of
accounts, payments and expenditure generally. Owing to changes
effected in 1869, which made the parliamentary secretary,
assisted by the civil lord, responsible for finance at the
admiralty, bringing the naval and victualling store departments
into his charge. the accountant-general was invested with
the power of criticizing these accounts financially, though
he did not as yet possess any financial control, and the
position was little changed by fresh rules made in 1876. It
was not until 1880 that the powers of the accountant-general
were enlarged in this direction. It was then ordered that he
should be consulted before any expenditure which the estimates
had not provided for was incurred, and before any money voted
was applied to other purposes than those for which it was
provided. The effect of this order was not happy, for the
accountant-general could not undertake these duties without
setting up friction with the departments whose accounts he
criticized. It was contemplated by the admiralty in 1885 to
make the accountant-general the assistant of the financial
secretary, and to raise him to the position of a permanent
officer of finance instead of being an officer of account
invested with imperfect authority in the direction of
control. A select committee of the House of Commons reported
that the accountant-general possessed no financial control
over the departments, and that there was an urgent need for
establishing such a control. At the time the position of
that officer did not enable him to exercise any sufficient
general supervision over expenditure, and there was no
permanent high official expressly charged with finance.
Accordingly, after being submitted to a departmental committee,
a fresh arrangement was made in November 1885, whereby the
accountant-general, under the authority of the financial
secretary, was given a direct share in the preparation of the
estimates. His written concurrence was required before the
final approval of the votes, and each vote was referred to
him for his approval or observations, and he was to exercise
a financial review of expenditure and to see that it was
properly accounted for. He became, in fact, ``the officer
to be consulted on all matters involving an expenditure of
naval funds.'' It was believed that economical administration
would result; but much opposition was raised to the principle
that was involved of submitting the proposals of responsible
departments to the inexpert criticism of a financial
authority. Mr Main, assistant accountant-general, stated
before the Royal Commission on Civil Establishments, 1887,
that the effect had been to develop a tendency to withhold
information or to afford only partial information, as well
as to cause friction when questions were raised affecting
expenditure, accompanied by protests, even in those cases
in which these questions were manifestly of a legitimate
character. The result was discouraging, and in the opinion
of Mr Main had done much to weaken financial control and to
defeat the purpose of the order. It is unnecessary to detail
the various changes that have been made by the institution of
dockyard expense accounts in the department of the controller,
and by various other alterations introduced. The treasury
instituted an independent audit of store accounts which greatly
affected the position of the accountant-general, and the Royal
Commission on Civil Establishments reported that the Board
of Admiralty were of opinion that they could dispense with
the accountant- general's review altogether. The commission
was, however, of opinion that the accountant-general should be
the permanent assistant and adviser, on all matters involving
the outlay of public money, of the financial secretary.
The operations of the accountant-general are now conducted
in accordance with the order in council of the 18th of
November 1885, and of an office memorandum issued shortly
afterwards. He thus acts as deputy and assistant of the
parliamentary and financial secretary, and works with a
finance committee within the admiralty, of which the financial
secretary is president and the accountant-general himself
vice-president. The duties of the department are precisely
defined as consisting in the criticism of the annual estimates
as to their sufficiency before they are passed, and in advising
the financial and parliamentary secretary as to their satisfying
the ordinary conditions of economy. The accountant-general
also reviews the progress of liabilities and expenditure, and
in relation to dockyard expenditure he considers the proposed
programme of construction as it affects labour, material and
machinery. He further reviews current expenditure, or the
employment of labour and material, as distinguished from cash
payments of the yard, as well as proposals for the spending of
money on new work or repairs of any kind for which estimates
are currently proposed. The accountant-general's department
has three principal divisions: the estimates division, the
navy pay division, and the invoices and claims division. In
the first of these is the ledger branch, occupied with the
work of accounts under the several votes and sub-heads of
votes, and with preparing the navy appropriation account,
as well as the estimates and liabilities branch, in which
the navy estimates are largely prepared after having been
proposed and worked out in the executive departments of the
admiralty. There are also ships' establishments and salaries
branches. The navy pay division includes the full and half-pay
branch and a registry section. There is also the seamen's pay
branch, which audits ships' ledgers and wages, and has charge
of all matters concerning the wages of seamen. The victualling
audit is also in this branch, and is concerned with payments
for savings in lieu of victualling and some other matters.
Further, the navy pay division examines ships' ledgers, and
is concerned with the service, characters, ages, &c., of men
as well as with allotments and pensions The third division of
the accountant-general's department, known as that of invoices
and claims, conducts a vast amount of clerical work through
many branches, and is concerned with the management of naval
savings banks and matters touching prize-money and bounties.
The importance of this great department of the admiralty
cannot be overrated. It is, in the first place, of supreme
importance that the navy estimates should be placed upon a
sound financial basis; and in practice the Board requires
the concurrence of the accountant-general to the votes before
they are approved, and thus in greater or less degree this
officer is concerned in the preparation of every one of the
votes. He does not concern himself with matters of larger
policy outside the domain of finance, and it must be
confessed that there appears to be something anomalous in
his ``review'' of naval expenditure. It is, however, a mark
of the flexibility or elasticity of the admiralty system
that in practice the operations of the accountant- general's
