A.—4

48

admitted that these accounts are insufficient to enable a complete audit to be made of the Collectors' transactions. The Audit relies in the first instance on the certificates and declarations attached to the account, and subsequently upon the local inspection of the offices, which, with the assistance of one Inspector, the Colonial Auditor is able to make about once a year; but he does not inspect the railway stations or the country post offices. .For the audit of the Railway receipts he relies on the Railway Traffic Auditor, who is considered to be an officer of his department, although paid by the railway. The Treasury renders to the Audit monthly a detailed copy of the Inland Revenue Accounts to be checked against the Collectors' attested returns. This appears to be superfluous, as the local inspection should be sufficient to secure the proper collection of the revenue; if at least it is, as it is understood to be, exhaustive. In the case of the fees and fines in local Courts, every case is checked from the records of the Court into the cash-book, except in Hobart, where the fees are collected by stamps. In the Customs the audit is not so complete. The warrants are all sent to the Audit, but the examination is not based on the manifests, nor is there any Inspector or Controller of Customs as in some other colonies. The bonded stores, however, are periodically inspected, and the contents examined. . . The Colonial Auditor is also Auditor of Municipal and Road Trust Accounts. All these accounts are carefully inspected locally once a year, but in addition their annual balance-sheets, supported by vouchers, are sent to the Audit Office, and are passed by the Colonial Auditor before being published. The valuation rolls and rate-books are also examined in detail, in order to secure that the Government subsidies shall not be exceeded. There are, including boroughs, rural municipalities, and road trusts, in all about ninety local bodies.

The form of the Public Revenues Act of New Zealand, which corresponds to the Audit Act of other colonies, differs from them in this, that it is constructed to provide for the audit of the vouchers before payment, and for the payment of all claims by cheque from the Treasury direct, and for a control vested in the Audit Office, not, as in Victoria, only over the issue of money from the Bank for the purpose of making payments, but over the detailed payments themselves. The Controller and Auditor-General, and the Assistant Controller and Auditor hold their offices upon good behaviour, and their salaries are fixed by the Act. The Act provides that it is their duty " to audit all accounts relating to the receipt, "custody, or expenditure of the public moneys; and it shall be the duty of the " Receiver-General, the Paymaster-General, and of all Accountants and other per- " sons, to afford all such information as the Audit Office at any time requires, and to " answer all such questions as may be addressed to them or any of them by the " Audit Office touching any public moneys, on any account thereof, or any other " matter which may be necessary to enable the Audit Office to fulfil the duties " imposed thereon by this Act." And full powers are given to the Audit Office to recover all moneys which any public officer has refused or neglected to pay into the Public Account, and to sue for the penalties incurred by such default. The power of surcharging Collectors of Revenue with sums which it was their duty to have collected, is not specifically given by the Act, although it has been the practice of the Audit Office to do so from the first creation of that office in the colony. Such a provision occurs, as has been stated, only in the Act of New South Wales. This power is apparently supposed to be conveyed in New Zealand by the words of the 77th section : " Every person refusing or neglecting to pay any money " into the Public Account or into any deposit account which he is required so to " pay under the provisions of this Act shall be liable to a penalty of one hundred " pounds." It is probable, however, that such words may be held to apply only to moneys which a Collector has actually received, and not to moneys which he has neglected to collect. The Andit Office in New Zealand exercises a control over the ways and means

New Zealand