To Speed Up the War Effort
There has been no concealment of wide-spread dissatisfac- tion about progress in war-production, distribution of man- power and other urgent problems of the Home Front. The object of the Prime Minister's creation of new executives is to obtain " more rapid and decisive action," to knit together the machinery of administration at the top, and to fit it in with the decisions of the War Cabinet. First, then, there is to be a new Import Executive, consisting of the Ministers of Supply, Aircraft-Production, Food, the First Lord of the Admiralty and the President of the Board of Trade, with the first of these, Sir Andrew Duncan, as chairman. It will be his task to reduce to order the complicated tangle of import requirements. Second, there is to be a Production Executive, consisting of the same personnel, except that the Minister of Labour, Mr. Bevin, who will be chairman, takes the place of the Minister of Food. Sir John Anderson is to be chairman of a supreme committee, consisting of the chairmen of both of these executives and of the Committees on Civil Defence, Home Policy and Food Policy. This body apparently consti- tutes the direct liaison with Mr. Churchill and the War Cabinet. It will be the business of the chairmen to extract the greatest possible advantage from the close association of the heads of departments. It must be remembered that new com- mittees in themselves, though potentially useful, are no substitute for personal drive and receptiveness to ideas. It remains to be seen whether these associations of executive men will generate new fire. The Committee of Ministers over whom Mr. Arthur Greenwood is to preside is an innovation of a different order. Its task, to study post-war recopstruction and practical solutions for the problems of transition from war to peace, is one which demands the co-operation of the best constructive minds in the country.
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