'PAPERS RELATING TO THE MESOPOTAMIAN COMMISSION from SIR E. BARROW'S ROOM' [‎619r] (1249/1386)

gradually evolved in accordance v;ith the needs and dictates of
each period of its growth. The consequence is that many
features^seemingly anomalous and illogical,are really well
adapted to its # peculiar conditions. Thus we had in India
Uv C+v* * ** -
a great executive Officer who was ex officio a menoer ox one
Government, "but who was at the same time subordinate in
certain respects to the Government of India# "fhe Lilitary
Department” was not a T^ar Office in the European sense of the
M/U€A
term, hut a ministerial agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. through the authority of the
Council j
Governor General in was exercise 1. fhat department was
the
in charge of a member of the Governaant styled t&&"Military
Member of Council", fhat high official had no military command
nor any executive military functions but through the Military
Department under its constitutional hee^J the Secretary to
Government, he controlled the great spending departments of
the Army namely the Ordnance, the Supply and transport, the
listing Military Works, the Army demount, the Army Clothing
and also the Military Accounts Department and the Royal Indian
Marine. Certain large financial powers were delegatee, to the
Military Department which enabled it to dispose of multifarious
matters which would otherwise have to be* submitted for orders
to the Governor General in Council, a procedure which c/ould
not but result in a serious congestion of business. Ihe
MilitaJJ^ Department was moreover charged with the preparation
of the Annual Military and Military Works Budgets. It was
responsible for the regulation of militajJK expenditure and for
the conduct of all correspondence on military affairs with
the Government at Home. fhus the supreme financial control
was retained in the hands of the supreme authority, namely the
Government of India,^uch changes in the organisation of the
Army as the Commander-in-Chief might propose could only be
undertaken after his proposals had been place by the military
Department before the Governor General in Council in all their
bearings both as regards their financial and political aspects,
and the effect such changes might have on the Army ix generally,**
while the purely military or technical view of the matter in