3
The suiscrepancy in 1917/18 is even larger wer payment of £18,
the
£15,000
now becomes arly $28,0 &
Af then the $ cert
is
divided into equal monthly instalments & there converted
t
wach to ₤ at the monthly rates, the ₤ equivalents so oltanied will
aggregate to the
actual
t
cont
as given
of the proposed refund to be approximately
2/3rds of £114,000, that is about £76,000
(or somewhat less because the larger part of
the overpayment was made in 1918-19 when the
rate had risen above 3/-). I have therefore
examined in some detail the War Office
calculations.
of error: -
There are two possible sources
(1) In converting the cost of the Garrison
into dollars the War Office have divided the
total cost for each year into equal monthly
instalments and converted these at what I
presume to be the average rate of exchange for
the month into dollars, and added up the amounts
30 obtained in order to arrive at the total
cost in dollars of the Garrison. This method
results in varying monthly contributions
reckoned in dollars, whereas the principle
really is that the monthly contributions in
dollars should be equal. This result would be
achieved by converting the total cost for the
year into dollars at the average rate for the
year instead of converting it month by month.
This method would result in rather lower figures
for the dollar cost of the "arrison, the
difference being $28,000 for 1917-18 and
$6,000 for 1918-19.
(2) When the original calculations of the
overpayment were made the War Office converted
the actual contribution in dollars into
sterling and subtracted it from the sterling
cost of the Carrison. The rates adopted are
not stated, but I have calculated them from the
figures