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Q.-You did not sign receipts for taxes or Crown Rent? A.-No, not as far as I remember.
Q. What did your duties as Treasurer chiefly consist in?
A.—I should say in keeping the work up to the mark as much as possible, seeing that the different collections were made in time, and so on, and in correspondence and in Executive and Legislative work.
Mr. Thurburn.-Making out the estimates?
A. As a member of the Legislative Council, attending meetings and so on.
The Chairman. You cannot tell us that you insisted that the book of 1888 should be balanced?
A.—I cannot. I should think probably I did not.
Q.-Why?
A.-I think I should recollect if I did.
Mr. Bird. As far as we can make out, the system of balancing was the chief check you had. If it had been insisted upon there could have been no fraud. You understand the system?
A. Yes. What I always felt was the want of a daily audit. One had to trust and rely upon these visits of the Auditor and what I felt was that every day, from day to day, there ought to be a continuous audit going on.
Mr. Thurburn.--That duty would have been in the Treasurer's own department? A. Yes, but there was no officer to do it. I say there ought to be an officer.
Q.-You had not sufficient clerks ?
A.They were all busy with their own work.
Q.-In fact it was impossible?
A.-Unless there was a special man.
The Chairman. That being so, did not you consider that it was very important that the only check which the Auditor had, namely, the balancing of the book, should have been attended to?
A.-I certainly see now after the event that it should be done, but it did not strike me at the time. So much so indeed that I am unable to say whether it was done or not.
Mr. Thurburn.-Did you know that Alves was in the habit of receiving money? A. It never came specially to my notice.
The Chairman.--What do you mean by specially?
A.-It was never brought to my notice.
Q.-The system seems to have been to institute a check on the shroff, but there was no check on Alves?
A. Yes.
Q.-Except by balancing the book at the end of the year, and that was not done?
A. Yes.
Q.-So there was absolutely no check upon him?
A.---No.
Mr. Thurburn. We were told that Mr. Lister altered the system-that formerly Alves made out the receipts and that they were all signed by Mr. Carvalho,—and it was owing to Alves not only keeping the register of crown rents, making out receipts and