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Government of India, Military Department correspondence, 1897.
Approx. 300pp., foolscap. Govt. Central Press, Simla.
1897
#68061
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![[HLMainPic]](booksThumbs/68061.jpg "Click on the left or right of the image for more images")
A volume of printed copies (mostly around 100-130 printed) relating to administrative matters in the Indian Army, largely relating to accounts & pay, officers' claims for allowances (some granted, many not), purchase or requisition of equipment &c. Chiefly of value in demonstrating the immense burden of official 'red tape' that kept large numbers of staff officers gainfully employed. Take, for instance, the dispute over payment for a typewriter obtained by the Mathematical Instrument Department: "The Military Accounts Department have refused to accept the debit raised by the Mathematical Instrument Department against the Military estimates on this account, on the ground that the transaction is not covered by the sanction of Government as laid down in the resolution of the Government of India in the Finance Department, No. 185, dated 10th January 1883, as modified by the orders in Finance Department Resolution No. 2586, dated 23rd May 1889, and the correspondence is now submitted for the orders of Government." In other words: the typewriter should not have been obtained without prior sanction, but, as the typewriter had already been obtained the Government of India sanctioned - "as a special case" - the cost being met from the contingent grant of the QMG's Department. Spellbinding stuff. Modern three-qtr. Indian calf, a little wormed, generally VG. See illustration on our website.
£60
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