IMPERIAL SUPPLIES

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3021, 7 March 1917, Page 6

IMPERIAL SUPPLIES

ENORMOUS SUMS DISBURSED.

A million and a quarter a week is about the rato at which payments are being'made now by the Department of Imperial Government Supplies. ;It is stili a comparatively small Department, very small, having regard to its enormous and increasing responsibilities, having a, total staff of 33 men and women. For a long time the Department dealt only with frozen meat, an order for cheese, and a little scheelite. and in those days it did its work with a staff of six people, paying out its millions steadily and efficiently. Lately it has been- given other work to do, and it has had to move .from its ono room domicile in the Post Office Building to a suite of offices in Customhouse Quay.

Up to date the Department lias disbursed about' twenty-four million pounds sterling since it commenced operations on March 3,1915. Of this amount some £15,000,000 has been paid for meat, and about half that, amount for wool. In future the total will, be swelled much more rapidly. It has now to attend to the purchase of meat, wool, cheese, hides, sheepskins, and scheelite. It has to receive the butterfat levy, and make adjustments, and it _has_ to deal with the treatment cf skins in Now Zealand at fellmongeries. One of its most important tasks is to arrange for the shipment of tho goods purchased. The Department takes all the insulated spaco in every ship except that which is reserved for butter, when butter is to be carried, and until the wool is all shipped it will take, also, vory nearly all the general cargo space as well. Its activities have increased very rapidly of late, and they are likely to increase'still further. Already the Department is probably one of the most important, and it is by far the most unpretentious, in all the State service.