It had, furthermore, put in five thousand plumbing fixtures; cleaned, rolled and seeded nearly four thousand acres of land for flying purposes, and done a commissary business which touched forty thousand meals a week.
In these activities it spent five and a half million dollars.
From all of which it may be seen that what was accomplished equals the building of a modern town with streets, sanitation of every description and every physical equipment.
Had it been a town the work had been easier, but as it was there were many areas, with two hundred miles between extreme points.
In dispensing with contractors and assuming itself all obligations the Department was swayed by but one fact. The requirements of the brigade were so varying and so subject to training considerations, that it seemed impossible to adequately provide for all contingencies by contract. The change took place in the autumn of 1917, and in the months that followed the Munitions Board profited by unity of control, by the opportunity of large bulk purchases of material, and by every consequent advantage accruing to a single organization which directs many scattered operations.
R.A.F. Can.—Employes on Construction Work Superintended by I.M.B.
