2. A. Dept.. Form Xa. Ib
(COPY)
REC
C.O.
9446
The Local Auditor, Hong Kong, to the Comptroller and Auditor General.
EO 10/9/96.
Red 2 MAY 96
375
Sir,
Audit Office,
Hong Kong,
23rd March, 1896.
With reference to your letter No 4/36, of 10th February last, on the subject of a payment of $437 to the Captain Superintendent of Police out of the "Sikh Passage or Chundah Fund" for the establishment of an "Indian Mess Fund", I have the honour to report as follows:-
2. The Chundah Fund appears to have been first instituted in 1867, and consists of a deduction of $1 a month from the pay of every Indian Constable, until each man has paid $31, or until he leaves the Force, or until he has served five years.
3. The Fund appears to have been started Departmentally, as there is nothing on record in the Colonial Secretary's Office as to the opening of the Fund.
4. The Fund is designed to pay the passage of men back to India so as to prevent their having a claim on the Government for the cost of a return passage.
5. There can be little doubt but that the Fund is the property of the men who have subscribed to it, and is in no sense Government money, although it is paid into the Treasury for safe keeping.
6. The surplus is probably due to the loose way the accounts were kept prior to 1875, in which year a regular ledger was opened and a proper account kept of incomings