Sessional_Paper_1893 — Page 613

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FIFTH MEETING.

March 16th, 1893.

Present: Mr. E. J. ACKROYD, Chairman.

Mr. J. THURBURN.

Mr. S. G. BIRD.

Mr. F. J. BADELEY, Secretary.

Honourable N. G. Mitchell-Innes, re-called.

The Chairman:-We wish to ask you a few questions, Mr. Mitchell-Innes, with regard to the system of checking employed in the Treasury. You said that you considered the checking of the Audit Office sufficient. Now the Instructions say that you as head of a department are responsible for the checking in your own department. How long would it have taken to have a check made of the counterfoils with the Rent Roll every day?

A.-I could not say. I never tried to do it.

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Q. Do you know about how many payments would be made every day?

A.—No, I should think they vary very largely.

Q-At the beginning of every six months of course they would come in pretty heavily?

A.-Naturally they would.

Mr. Thurburn. Is it not possible to institute checks in the department, to have a separate officer to check off the counterfoils with the Reut Roll and see that there were no discrepancies ?

A.-It would be perfectly possible.

Q.-It would not be very much work. It might possibly for a week or two after the end of each half year, when, I suppose, the payments are large?

A. Yes.

Q-It might be pretty hard work for a few days at that period but most days it would only be a matter of a quarter of an hour?

A. Yes. I might explain with reference to this checking of receipts that when I took up the position of Treasurer the new Financial Instructions were just coming out and of course at that time I was entirely ignorant of Treasurer's duties and I was in doubt as to what financial instructions ought to be like. The Auditor showed me some which he had gone through with Mr. Wodehouse and I was not able to make many corrections or suggestions at the time and they passed into their present shape with very little alteration from me. But there is a dispatch on record in which, after a great deal of correspondence as to what the respective duties were to be, I distinctly said. that I declined to be responsible for the checking of the receipts generally in service unless the staff was increased.

The Chairman. We are speaking now only of the receipts in the Department. A. Yes. I declined to be responsible for the checking of receipts generally.