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16. In paragraph 29 of their Report the Commission say that the defalcations commenced in my time and night have been detected by some vigilance on my part.
17. I have the honour to enquire how it is known that the defalcations com- menced in my time. I have looked through the Evidence, and so far as I can see the whole of the defalcations put down to 1888 and 1889 may, for all that is shown to the contrary, have taken place in the first half of 1888 when I was not Treasurer, and under any circumstances I should think that it is very improbable that all the defalcations, that occurred in 1888, occurred in the last six months only of that year.
18. How, moreover, can it be asserted that with some vigilance I might have detected them. It is not even known in what way they were committed, and Mr. NICOLLE himself says that if they were done in the way that he suggests as most likely by the issue of false receipts, neither the Treasury nor the Audit Office could have detected them until the books came to be examined.
19. It must be remembered that I was a temporary officer with other duties that kept me away from the Treasury during the greater part of the day, and if therefore the frauds going on continuously for five years have eluded the vigilance of the Audit Office, the sole raison d'être of whose existence is the prevention of such occurrences, and have also eluded the observations of my successors who no longer labour under the disadvantage of combining Treasury work with other duties, I fail to see on what grounds the Commission assert that I might have detected them with some vigilance.
20. Where I do see that they might rightly have made remark is on Mr. FREIRE'S evidence.
21. In the absence of the Rent Rolls and Counterfoil books and other records it is difficult to hazard any opinion, but I must say that I think_great_weight attaches to Mr. FREIRE's admissions that he did not examine the Rent Roll for 1888 nor that for 1889, that it was his duty to have done so, and that he made no complaint to me as to any difficulty he encountered in obtaining the books. In these admissions appears to me to be contained the key to the whole situation, and had he either made the examinations as he reports was his duty or reported his inability to do so, if unable to obtain the books, I do not see why these frauds should not have been discovered at an earlier date. It is impossible now to round upon the Treasury and to say that he did not report that the books were not written up because he thought that the Treasurer knew of it. Such explanations, I submit, are no longer admissible so far as they bear on the proper share of blame to be attached to particular individuals, and the time for making them has passed, and I submit that the Commission would have been more just in making particular note of this evidence than in passing it over without comment and asserting only that I could have discovered the frauds by the exercise of some vigilance.
22. It must be remembered, finally, in this connection that every month was submitted to the Audit Office the Collector's account showing the whole of the Treasury receipts and disbursements, and that these were continuously audited and were invariably signed "examined and found correct" together with the date of examinations.
23. Considering therefore that in those days the Treasurer was for the most. part an absentee Officer, that his Officers were tried and valued servants, that there were no a priori grounds for suspecting dishonesty, and that there was no departmental machinery for the purpose of checking frauds other than what the system in force supplied, I do not think that it is surprising that their commission escaped detection, especially when it was not the duty of the Treasurer then, as it has been since, to provide his own checks independently of the Audit.
24. In the absence therefore of the books, and in the want of direct evidence to show in what way the frauds were committed and in the light of the failure of every one else to detect them, including Mr. LISTER, I submit that there is no sufficient ground for alleging that with some vigilance I could have detected them.
25. With regard to the other allegations made by the Commission regarding me, I do not admit, as stated in paragraph 27, that balancing the books is the only check. I should say that its value as a check depended upon circumstances, and