Spending branches are in the department of the controller, and it will be well, while we are dealing with the material side of the Royal Navy, to describe briefly their character and duties.
[1] The Royal Corps of Naval Constructors, whose members interchange their duties between the designing of ships at the admiralty and practical work at the dockyards.
[1] In all this work the director of naval construction collaborates with the engineer-in-chief, who is an independent officer and not a subordinate, and whose procedure in regard to machinery closely resembles that adopted in the matter of contract-built ships.
that the responsibility of the controller devolves in regard to the management of dockyards and naval establishments at home and abroad, and to the performance of work in these estab lishments, ship and boat building, maintenance, repairs and refits.
[1] At the same time, the civil departments of the admiralty being held responsible for the administration of the votes they compile, it is their duty to watch the outlay of money; and to see that it is well expended, the accountant-general being directed to assist them in this work.
The system is closely jointed and well administered, but it possesses a very centralized character, which interferes to some extent with flexible working, and with the progress of necessary repairs, especially in foreign yards.
The work conducted in private establishments is closely watched by the admiralty officials, and is thoroughly tested, but, mutatis mutandis, the system in regard to contract-built ships is practically the same as that which prevails in the dockyards.
The large sums of money with which the admiralty deals in the way of both estimates and expenditure, amounting recently to about 30,000,000 annually, implies the existence of the great organization which is found in the department of the accountant-general of the navy.
[1] Under the authority of the first lord, the parliamentary and financial secretary is responsible for the finance of the admiralty in general, and for the estimates and the expenditure, the accounts and the purchases, and for all matters which concern the relations of the admiralty to the treasury and to other departments of the government; and in all the practical and advisory work the accountant-general is his officer, acting as his assistant with the director of naval contracts who, under the several lords, is concerned with the business of purchase.