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three months the Collectors are to deal with these as with public moneys, and they are to be paid to the credit of the Trust Fund. By the 10th section of the Act, " The Treasurer or his Deputy shall from day " to day pay into the Bank keeping the Government account all moneys received " into the Treasury to an account in such Bank, to be called the Public Account." The above constitute the provisions of the law as regards the receipt and custody of public moneys. The practical working of the system may be described as follows: — The Colonial Treasurer is, by virtue of his office, "the Collector of Inland " Revenue," and, with certain exceptions, Collectors of Revenue pay their receipts to him. These payments are made, as a rule, weekly; but, where the collections are very small, monthly. Where the Collector has an official account at a Bank he pays his receipts into it, as a rule, daily; and transfers the balance weekly to the account of the Colonial Treasurer at Sydney. He is not permitted to operate on his account for any other purpose. Where he has no local Bank account he sends the money up to the Treasury, weekly, by post, in coin, notes, post office orders, or registered letters, and sometimes in private cheques on a Sydney Bank. In the case of auction sales, in which the deposits are payable on the sale, and the balances within three months afterwards, the Land Agent is required to transmit the deposits to the Treasury immediately after the sale, and the balances as soon as he receives them. Land purchasers may, however, pay their balances into the Treasury at Sydney, if it is more convenient to them to do so. The Treasurer pays all the money he thus receives, day by day, into the Government Bank, to the credit of the Public Account. Certain branches of revenue are treated differently. In the case of Customs, Stamp Duties, and Railway Revenue, the Collectors in the country pay their receipts, not to the Treasurer, but to the head office of their own department in Sydney, whence the money is paid daily into the Public Account without passing through the Treasurer's hands. The Government Bank at present is the Bank of New South Wales; but moneys are placed sometimes on fixed deposit in other Banks. At the end of 1879 the aggregate of the sums thus deposited with nine of the Banks in Sydney amounted to £1,725,000.

In Victoria the provisions of the Audit Act are similar to those in New South Wales, with the differences to be now noted. The Victorian Act, however, was that upon which those of most of the other colonies were drafted. The clauses already quoted from the New South Wales Act are copied from the Act of Victoria; except that, in the latter, Receivers of Revenue, instead of paying their collections into the Treasury or such Bank as the Governor in Council directs (leaving it to be inferred that the moneys so paid into the Bank are to be transferred to the Public Account at the seat of Government), are required to pay their collections into such Bank as the Governor in Council appoints, "to the " credit of an account to be called the Public Account;" thereby making the Public Account übiquitous throughout the colony. Moneys payable into the Treasury belonging to private persons, and similar moneys coming into the hands of officers, though not by law payable into the Treasury, are dealt with in precisely the same manner as in New South Wales. The Victorian Act differs from that of the older. colony also in this respect: no moneys in Victoria are paid " into the Treasury," or " to the Treasurer ;" the Colonial Treasurer is not a Receiver of Revenue. All moneys are paid directly into a " Public Account." Under the Victorian Act there are two classes of officers for the collection of revenue, " Collectors of Imposts " and " Receivers." The former are the officers into whose hands the money is first paid by the public; the latter are superior officials to whom the Collectors pay their collections in

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