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Q-Yes, but who writes the accounts? Before you check the accounts, you must have the accounts written by someone?
A.-The accounts are written in the Secretary's Office.
Records are kept there.
Q-And therefore you, as Head of the Department, with your subordinates under you, are responsible for the correct writing up of the accounts? How can the Auditor check the accounts, if they are not properly written up
?
A. The Auditor would find out if there were any mistakes.
Q. Who do you consider is the responsible Officer for the accuracy of the accounts, the writing of the accounts of the Sanitary Department? Is it the Government Auditor, or some subordinate under you personally, as Head of the Department?
A.-I suppose the Administrative Head of the Department is responsible for the whole of the work of the Departinent.
Q.-Yon naturally dont do all the work of the Department; who do you look on as the proper person, who writes up the accounts?
A. The Secretary.
Q.-And do you mean to say that you want to modify that evidence, that I have read. just now, with regard to what you said concerning the accounts? Do you mean to say that you are still satisfied that your Secretary or your accountant keeps those accounts as they should be kept?
A. Yes.
Q-You think he does?
A. Yes.
—
Q. And therefore, we may take it that this is practically a correction, or modification, of the evidence you gave on that previous occasion ?
A. That is so. You asked me so much about ledgers and store books,—we have not got a ledger.
Q.-We ask as business men.
A.-Business men I dont think understand how the accounts are kept in a Govern- ment Department.
Mr. Shelton Hooper.-I agree with you.
A.-(continued) I think it is only right to the Secretary, that I should state that it is on record, on a C.S.O. which I can give you, that the store books and the accounts of the Departinent have been satisfactorily kept by the Secretary, and the reasou why I say that is because they are audited monthly by the Government Auditor, and very few complaints have been made concerning the way in which the books have been kept.
The Chairman. But you admit some complaints have been made?
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A.—Yes, some complaints have been made.
Witness produces C. S. O. referred to, No. 1404 of 1902.
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