for approval of design and for
inspection should be independent of the producer, whether the producer
was a Government official or a contractor. Apart from questions of
general principle in this matter, accidents to ordnance material in the
Navy, or the production of inferior ammunition, may involve, and have
involved, the most serious results, even the complete loss of
battleships with their crews, as the result of a magazine explosion or
the bursting of a heavy gun. I could not find that the organization at
the Ministry of Munitions had, even in its early days, placed design,
inspection and production under one head; inspection and design had each
its own head and were separate from production. In any case in 1918 the
Ministry of Munitions reverted to the Admiralty system of placing the
responsibility for design and inspection under an artillery expert who
was neither a manufacturer nor responsible for production.

The matters referred to above may appear unimportant to the civilian
reader, but any question relating to the efficiency of its material is
of such paramount importance to the fighting efficiency of the Navy that
it is necessary to mention it with a view to the avoidance of future
mistakes.

The new organization resulted in the creation of a very large
administrative staff for the purpose of accelerating the production of
ships, ordnance material, mines, etc. Indeed, the increase in numbers
was so great that it became necessary to find additional housing room,
and the offices of the Board of Education were taken over for the
purpose. It was felt that the increase in staff, though it involved, of
course, very heavy expenditure, would be justified if it resulted in
increased rapidity of production. It will be readily understood that
such an immense change in organization, one which I had promised to see
through personally, and which was naturally much disliked by all the
Admiralty departments, threw a vast volume of extra work on my
shoulders, work which had no connexion with the operations of war, and
this too at a period when the enemy's submarine campaign was at its
height. I should not have undertaken it but for the hope that the change
would result in greatly increased production, particularly of warships
and merchant ships.

The success of this new organization can only be measured by the results
obtained, and by this standard, if it were possible to eliminate some of
the varying and incalculable fa