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Q-How long do bills ever remain in your hands without being paid?
A.--If it is sent before the proper time when these bills are to be paid I must wait till the day comes. For instance, we make a payment in the beginning of the month- for contract work, and on the 20th is the time for me to send the accounts to the Audit Office for the Audit Office to examine and pass them, so that all measured work may be paid for on the 25th.
Q.-Then do you mean to say every bill, as soon as it comes into your hands, is passed in at once for payment?
A.-Not these small bills?
Q.--These you keep till you get a number of them perhaps?
A. Yes.
Q. What is the longest time a bill ever remains in your hands?
A.-If I got one, for instance, on the 1st of the month, I must wait until the proper
time to send these accounts in.
Q.-And that is when?
A. On the 20th.
Q.-So that a bill might be in your hands three weeks?
A.-Yes.
Q.--Not longer?
A.-No.
Q.-And it would then be paid on the 25th?
A.--Yes; unless I have received some special order for the bills to be paid at once.
Q-Then do I understand you to say the longest delay you know of in the payment of any bill is three weeks?
A.--Yes.
Q.-The CHAIRMAN.-But suppose it came in on the 21st, that would be kept waiting a month?
A. Yes.
Q.-Hon. A. LISTER.-Then you may say a month is the longest time?
A. Yes.
Q.--When you make these supplementary requisitions, is authority to pay got at once? You get some bills in excess of the requisition. You make out a supplementary requisition. Do you get the Governor's signature at once without delay?
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A. That has always been the case.