The Select Committee of the Mime of Commons appointed to
inquire into the principles and practice regulating the purchase and sale of materials and goods in the Public Departments has made its report, the pith of which is that the system introduced by Mr. Childers at the Admiralty shouldbe extended to the other Ministries. When Mr. Childers took office as First Lord in f869, he found that each of the six- principal permanent officers-of the Admiralty bought and sold the stores of his own department, subject to no sufficient financial controL The main securi- ties taken for the due performance of contracts were "in- tricate and complicated penalties and elaborate and antiquated forms of security." Mr. Childers changed all that, with the one idea governing his policy,—that the commercial business of the Admiralty should be managed on the same simple principles that regulate all other commercial business in this very commercial country. The First Secretary was charged with extra-financial responsibility, and a Superintende.nt of Contracts was appointed, to advise him on all questions of sale and purchase. The Com- mittee report that the new arrangements have proved a complete success, and recommend their extension to the other Departments, especially the Army.
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