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brings it all home to the reader as the novelists of previous decades failed to do. The faint rumble a a distant storm has grown to a volume of sound as rises from a modern battle-field. Boris Saitsev, a like most of his contemporaries, devotes his talent the description of the sufferings of the poor. Vere strikes deep into the heart of things. He describe 'Pathless' how Chekanov, a philanthropic doctor, g up his career to go and live in an isolated village, voting himself to the peasantry, body and soul. 1 mistrust him, accuse him of poisoning them, and length set on him and beat him to death. With dying breath he forgives them and puts the case as sees it to his cousin Natasha, a girl with aims sim to his own. 'So must it ever be, for we have ever b strangers to them, beings belonging to another wor we disdainfully avoided contact with them, with seeking to understand them; and a terrible g separated them from us.'

Russian literature represents a wonderful history intellectual evolution. The writers whose works ha built up that literature in the course of centuries beg as a child begins, by being receptive and imitative. slow degrees they freed themselves from outs influences and became at length exclusively pre-occup with the problems of their national development. have sought the answer to the inquiry underlying title of this article in the fiction of Russia, because th fiction is essentially an historical panorama of the Russ people. Uspenski, says Kropotkin, is rather an eth logist than a writer of fiction; and, generally speaki the novelist in Russia is a social historian, a politicia a preacher. He is not 'out' to amuse the idle or provide relaxation to the weary; he is 'out' impress on one and all the woeful condition of 1 countrymen, to cry aloud for freedom and justice. Th is, I think, the meaning and intention of the Russi literature of the present day; and this, from the fir was the pathway of its destiny.

C. HAGBERG WRIGHT.

Art. 7.-THE

REORGANISATION OF THE NAVAL

STAFF, 1917-19.

1. The Crisis of the Naval War. By Admiral of the Fleet Viscount Jellicoe. Cassell, 1920.

2 Der Dienst des Generalstabes. By Bronsart von Schellendorff. 4th edition; edited by Major von Schellendorff. Berlin: Mittler, 1905.

3. Field Service Regulations, Part II, 1914.

4. Handbuch für Truppenführung und Stabsdienst. By Cardinal von Widdern. Gera: Reisewitz, 1884.

5. Le Grand Etat-Major Naval. By Lieutenant de vaisseau Castex. Paris: Charles-Lavauzelle, 1909.

THE direction of any large business, whether it be a government service or a great soap industry, or an oil company with branches all over the globe, involves numerous problems of organisation and management, whose elucidation has attracted increasing study and attention in recent years under a variety of forms. The careful observation of the motions involved in some ordinary task, such as bricklaying or shovelling, with a view to economy of effort and standardised conditions of work, has given rise to a branch of investigation * termed 'time-motion' problems. The welfare and contentment of personnel are universally recognised as another matter of primary importance, intimately related to political stability, as well as to industrial efficiency, and giving rise to numerous side-issues of investigation, such as the effects of fatigue and strain, not only on the output, but on the whole character and social outlook of the worker. But, though the wide scope of the subject is beginning to be appreciated, there is a failure to observe that, if principles of efficiency are discoverable, they will be discovered in the business of war, for war is a business terribly intense and stern. In trade, man contends with time and tide and circumstance, and with his fellow-man in terms of gain; in engineering and medicine and the physical sciences, he contends with nature and the stubborn texture of atoms; but only in war does he contend with

• 'Twelve Principles of Efficiency,' by Harrington Emerson, 1912.

human intelligence consciously intent on encompas his immediate destruction, and directing every avail means to this end.

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War is not merely a business, but a terrible busi for an enemy determined to appeal to the arbitran of force allows no time for deliberation or delay. war, time is measured in seconds; and the sol therefore, was long ago compelled to discover the elements of efficiency which now engage attention-for gun-drill is only a soldier's name the time-motion' system of scientific managem whose object is to perform a given task with greatest speed and least effort. The tendency navy or army in peace time to fall into artificia and formalism should not blind us to the fact tha great war-service, emerging from a long war, is alr bound by the nature of things to bring with it cer principles of efficiency hammered out on the anvil hard and bitter experience. But a clear conception such principles is not a monopoly of the victorious s for the vanquished may discover them if they st diligently the causes of their defeat. At Jena the of Prussia suffered a disastrous eclipse; 'A nat breathed on us,' said Heine, and we melted aw But the lesson was not forgotten. The ablest think in Germany set to work to analyse the causes of defe and the principles they evolved were embodied Scharnhorst and Moltke in the Prussian system of s organisation (not to be confused with the spirit Prussian militarism), which has been adopted by modern armies, and may rightly be regarded as one the monumental achievements of the 19th century.

The master-key of this system lies in one fundamen principle-the necessity of a clear-cut distinction betw fighting and supply; that is, between the general direct of operations on the one hand, and routine and techni services on the other. The general direction of operati is the business of the Chief of the General Staff; & ranged beside him are the great quarter-master servi of administration and supply. The Chief of the Gene Staff stands at the right hand of the Supreme Comma co-ordinating the work of the whole towards a sin

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end; and closely in touch with him is the QuartermasterGeneral, responsible for the important background of transport, equipment, and supply.

This great triplicity of service is the hall-mark of an efficient organisation. At the head is the Commander-inChief, unburdened and unfettered by details, and bringing to difficult problems at a critical hour a large reserve of authority, and a clear outlook undimmed by a hundred minor matters of routine. At his right hand is his Chief of Staff, a master of the use of the instrument, responsible for a correct appreciation of the situation and for the general conduct of operations; and behind him is the Quartermaster-General, responsible for the gigantic task of supplying the instrument and keeping it efficient.

It may be legitimately argued that, if this is a general principle of efficiency, it will not be confined to the army alone, but will be discernible in all successful organisations of any size. And, in some form or other, this appears to be always the case. In a great newspaper, for instance, the editor may be regarded as the Chief of the Staff; and his work corresponds to the 'operational' aspect of the machine. The managerial or 'maintenance' aspect is concerned with the supervision of personnel, the conditions of service, the supply of all the equipment required, and the general superintendence of the work of printing, issue, and despatch, which involves the technical aspect of the whole craft and mechanism of printing. Again, in a large store, it is probable that the managing director is chiefly concerned with markets, sales, and the analysis of profits and loss, for these constitute the operational aspect of a business; and it may be assumed that he leaves to others such questions as the upkeep of the buildings, and the regulation, entry, and training of personnel, which concern the maintenance of the business rather than its extension and development. These two aspects may be given a variety of names, but the fundamental distinction lies in the fact that the one is concerned with the use of the instrument, the other with its supply and maintenance in an efficient state. The analogy may even be carried further. In the work

The Army term is General Staff and Administration, usually desighated G. and Q. (Quartermaster). The Admiralty in 1917 adopted the terms Operations and Maintenance.

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of Christian evangelisation, one of the great dynar
movements in the history of mankind, the Apost
refused to leave the work of preaching in order
'minister to tables'; and again, in the human bo
which is the archetype of functional co-ordination, t
automatic, unconscious, and what may be called t
'routine' processes of the body, such as the movemen
of the heart and lungs, are controlled by one portion
the brain, while the conscious, or what may be call
the 'operational,' activities, such as walking and spea
ing, are directed by another.

It may appear at first sight that this principle wou naturally commend itself to all administrators, b experience shows that this is far from being t case; men brought up in a small sphere of busine where they have been accustomed to exercise a lar measure of direct and personal control, cling to a syste of centralisation, and cling to it the more tenacious the older they grow. They take a real delight in deta and in the exercise of personal supervision over eve branch of work, and are never assailed by the desire be free in order to think of things unthought of, or study the wider aspects of their work. All the curren of the 19th-century Navy tended in this direction. TI naval officer was brought up in a limited sphere of wor his education gave him a strong sense of personal sponsibility; and his promotion was gained by person attention to the paint and brass work of his ship. As commander or a captain he learnt to love to pry into the corners of the ship; as an admiral he still hankerafter detail, and was apt to be absurdly busy and pr occupied over all sorts of trifles. He was maximus minimis-very great in very little things. Sir Per Scott has pointed out how the admiral of the 19 century decided what clothes the men were to wear, wh boats each ship was to use, whether awnings were to spread, when and how washed clothes were to be hur up, and how insistently each ship had to follow t flagship motions, and to do exactly what the flagsh did.*

This tendency to centralisation became an ineradicab

Fifty Years of Naval Life,' 144, 198, 212. 'As regards housemaidĖ and tailoring, no inspection could have been more searching.'

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