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Rh under the instructions of the Director of Supplies, would at once proceed to make the necessary contracts to purchase the supplies required to meet the needs of each particular depot. Under the old system it was, of course, obvious that, in the event of a general mobilization, the ordinary contract system of feeding the troops in the United Kingdom would necessarily break down, owing to the fact that at many of the stations the contractor would possibly be only a small butcher or baker, supplying depots of possibly one or two hundred men in number, whereas on mobilization that same depot at once expanded into several thousand, entirely beyond the ordinary small contractor.

Gen. Long's proposal for dealing with this matter was that on mobilization, as all contracts failed, and owing to popular excitement, possible inflation of prices, etc., it would not be possible to make other satisfactory contracts, every commanding officer would be authorized to take credit in his regimental messing accounts for 2s. for every man present with or joining the unit under his command, and similarly the sum of 1s. 9d. per diem per horse, and that he was then to make the best local arrangements he could with the money in question for the feeding of his men and animals. This system would go on for 10 days. At the end of that period the great depots throughout the country would be stocked and in working order and ready to take up the whole army supply throughout the United Kingdom.

These ideas were so novel and completely at variance with the general accepted ideas of the past, that when Gen. Long first made these proposals, they met with determined opposition from the finance side of the War Office. It was not indeed till July 1914 that he succeeded in getting his way and forcing the civil side of the War Office to accept his proposals, and it was not until towards the end of that month that the final instructions to all commands went out, directing exactly what was to be done in the way of feeding men and animals on mobilization. Similarly he met with strong opposition to his proposals for the formation of the great depots, not only from the civil side of the War Office, but also from the military as well.

Incidentally this complete change of system of army supply, and entire departure from all the laid-down rules of army feeding of the past, successful as it was from an army point of view, was if possible of even greater importance to the nation at large. Had the old system continued and been in operation when the war broke out, every army contractor, and every trader who aspired to be such, would instantly have proceeded to buy up the market and corner the various commodities, in the hopes of selling them at a great profit under contract to the various generals seeking to make contracts for the feeding of the troops under their command. As a matter of fact, in a measure this did happen on the outbreak of the war, so far that holders of goods and commodities withheld their stocks and ceased to put them on the market. Immediately after the outbreak of the war, it suddenly became impossible to buy a number of household requirements in the way of sugar, bacon, etc., owing to there being none on the market; well-to-do people, in a panic, began to lay in stocks at exorbitant prices, and from many large towns came the sounds of ominous murmurings from the poorer population who were unable to obtain their daily food. This continued for some three or four days; and it was not generally realized that it was the adoption of Gen. Long's system that suddenly restored an absolutely free market, with commodities little if anything above the prices prevailing at the end of July 1914. The reason for this was that the War Office being the sole buyers, and finding that importers, manufacturers and holders of goods were refusing to sell, Gen. Long, without waiting for authority, and taking the law into his own hands, proceeded to requisition certain requirements urgently wanted by the Expeditionary Force. He thereby forced the Government to pass immediately a requisitioning Act, and within 24 hours the holders of commodities were throwing their goods on the market, fearing to hold lest they should be requisitioned. Also, the War Office being the only buyers of meat other than the ordinary public, they were in the position of forcing the meat market to continue reasonable prices under the threat of requisition if they

failed to do so. This close control over the meat market was practically maintained right up to the middle of 1916, when the price of good average quality frozen meat to the Government landed in England was only a decimal point or two over 6d. per pound, and to the public at large only some couple of pence more.

During peace-time, in order to insure that the quality of supplies composing the soldier's ration should be kept up to a good sound standard, all A.S.C. officers were carefully trained so as to be good judges in this respect, and in addition, some exceptionally well-qualified officers were appointed special inspectors. On the outbreak of war, of course, all such officers were necessarily required for the fighting formations or for other almost equally important duties in connexion with the mobilized armies, and consequently the general inspection of supplies as to quality had to be relegated to a number of retired officers. The result of this in the past had been that, although such officers did their best, many of them had been retired for a great number of years, and were entirely out of touch with modern requirements, or, owing to age or infirmity, the work required was beyond their capabilities. The day following the outbreak of the World War, Dr. MacFadden, the medical head of the Public Health Department of the Local Government Board, went to Gen. Long at the War Office, to know if he could be of any assistance to him. Gen. Long at once replied that there was no one who could do more for the country and the soldier than the Local Government Board if they would undertake the duties; he was well aware that, under the procedure adopted by great Government departments, opposition would be raised by the Military Medical Authorities and the War Office, to the idea that the Local Government Board should in any way be allowed to interfere with the food of the soldier or the methods of its supply, etc.; but he for his part could not devise any system for a proper inspection, whereas the Local Government Board had all machinery ready to its hand, which could be turned over for the protection of public interests, and also the soldier's, without it costing one single penny. Gen. Long therefore proposed to Dr. MacFadden that he (Dr. MacFadden) should undertake the entire responsibility of seeing that all food-stuff supplied for use of the soldier should be of unexceptional quality, thoroughly sound and good, and fully complying with all the conditions of purchase; that he himself (Gen. Long) would supply Dr. MacFadden with copies giving specifications of everything in the way of food-stuffs; he would also supply Dr. MacFadden with a list of every factory, warehouse or other persons supplying the War Office with food-stuffs throughout the United Kingdom, and keep him so supplied; and then, if Dr. MacFadden would supply to each Health Officer a copy of the specifications and a list of the premises where food was being stored or manufactured for the War Office within that Health Officer's area, and request him to keep the closest watch upon the same, and immediately to take action under the Public Health Acts, if any wrong were committed or attempted then a perfect system of inspection would be attained.

All these duties Dr. MacFadden readily undertook, and the result exceeded the most sanguine expectations. The prosecutions were singularly few, but this undoubtedly was largely due to the closeness of the inspection. Medical Officers of Health threw themselves whole-heartedly into the scheme, and not only visited factories daily, but posted their inspectors of nuisance almost continuously on the premises. As a result of the first prosecution, a letter was sent to the Medical Officer of Health for the district in question, by Gen. Long on behalf of the Army Council, thanking him for his public services in safeguarding the interests of the country and more particularly the interests of our fighting men. The result of this was that every Medical Officer of Health throughout the United Kingdom redoubled his efforts to insure the best of quality, in the hopes that, could he catch a supplier slipping, he would then have the good fortune to obtain a similar letter. It is a well-known fact in official life that one Govt. Dept. objects to giving credit to another department for any work which it may do, and consequently it is not to be wondered at that little or no acknowledgment was made