Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 152, March 14, 1917 by Various
page 12 of 47 (25%)
page 12 of 47 (25%)
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the huts hidden away in odd corners of public gardens and parks, and even
in the bed of a lake. By the use of motor-cars (petrol being for official and not for private consumption) such co-operation as cannot be avoided between Departments is assured. (2) Even in a single Department too close co-operation is not desirable. An hotel, divided into hundreds of small rooms and flats, enables the occupant of each room to be isolated, and each self-contained flat to have almost the status of a sub-department. Thus the vexatious supervision, the easy intercourse and rapid decision which are so disturbing to official routine are avoided. (3) The express elevators, by which the visitor is shot up to the higher storeys of a sky-scraper, would suggest a certain directness and celerity in official methods that is calculated to arouse false hopes. (4) With many or all Departments in one building there would be the temptation to place the entire clerical staff under Mr. Neville Chamberlain as Director-General, who would transfer them from one office to another according to the necessities of each day's work. Such mobility would be unpopular, while the inevitable creation of a central Press-Bureau, Publicity and Information Department would afford the Press a satisfaction that it has done nothing to deserve. (5) On the top floor of a sky-scraper is usually a luncheon-club; here the various Ministers would meet daily, and could only with difficulty escape the exchange of ideas. (6) If all Government offices were in a single building the PRIME MINISTER could make daily visits to each, and would find it hard to avoid comparison |
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