Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: the officer acting lor the Government making use of the tariffs in effect with the general public. In some cases where the Government has owned its railway or equipment, it has engaged in passenger and freight transportation as would any private corporation. Similar means may be used for providing wheel and pack transportation. All of these methods are provided for under the Regulations of the Army. The officer engaging service by contract will, as a rule, be the officer responsible for the disbursement of the funds paying the transportation accounts, and the methods he pursues should be wise and economical for the Government,'but at the same time such as to produce the best results to the service, with the required degree of promptness. The character of his contracts will be subject to the careful scrutiny and approval of his commanding officer, his bureau chief, and the accounting officers of the Treasury, and the necessity of exercising wise business judgment is a matter as personal to him as it is important to his Government. III. BASE AND LINES OF COMMUNICATION. In order to have a full comprehension of the subjects of supply and transportation it is necessary to consider them in connection with the base and the lines of communication and in their relation to the other staff functions under control of the commanding general. For each Army in the lield or expeditionary force a general officer will be placed in command of the base and the lines of communication. His stair will consist of the following subordinate chiefs, or so many as may be required: . A. A commander at the base—line officer. B. A chief of transportation—an officer of the Quartermaster's Department. C. A chief of the railway service—an officer of the Quartermaster's Department. D. A chi...