The output of 6-inch high-explosive shells from Crewe Works had, at the time of the Armistice, reached, approximately, a total of 100,000, and the corresponding weight of steel forgings may be estimated, approximately, at 6500 tons. Government specifications in regard to tensile strength and cold fracture tests were not unnaturally exacting in the extreme, and the casts obtained at Crewe came fully in these respects up to the standard ordained. But amazing though it may seem (so tightly can the reel of official red tape be wound), notwithstanding Mr. Cook's offer and ability to furnish this supply of special high-grade steel, further Government regulations to the number of seventeen and covering three pages of foolscap demanded the observance of formalities, petty and extraneous, designed solely for the purpose of securing the right of incursion within Crewe Works of every Smith, Jones, and Robinson who under the pseudonym of "Government Inspector," and as units of a hugely overstaffed officialdom, sought by hook and by crook any and every means wherewith to justify their overpaid existence. "Nobody but managerial and supervising engineers can quite realise what a handicap these people have been upon efficient production," writes a student of bureaucracy in the _Morning Post_, April 21st, 1919. "How the engineering industry has survived in spite of it is almost a miracle; how it has produced in spite of it is quite a miracle. At one time the Ministry of Munitions could boast of no fewer than 27,000 officials, nearly all of whose positions might be reasonably defined as "jobs." There were inspectors and inspectors of inspectors, super-inspectors, and inspector-generals, munition area dilution officers, munition area recruiting officers, recruitment complaints officers, and committees, directors, sub-directors, information bureaux, with all the usual paraphernalia; officials with and without designation, priority officials whose duties were as nebulous as their qualifications, besides an unnumbered crowd of arrogant but grossly inexpert experts. It is a splendid tribute to the industry that it triumphed over this deadly deterrent and redeemed its obligation to the nation under so cruel and undeserved a burden."