A.—4

64

All the moneys collected in the Printing Office are paid to the Accountant. They consist of payments for Government printed papers, such as electoral rolls, &c, and for advertisements inserted in the Gazette. The sums collected amount to about £5,000 a year ; the whole cost of the Printing Office being about £40,000. The several classes of receipts are entered in day-books, the whole being carried into a cash-book, which is discharged by weekly payments to the Receiver of Revenue in Melbourne. The lodgments are made to the Printer's Official Account at the Bank, and the payments to the Receiver by cheque upon that account. All the payments of the staff and for material are made through the Accountant's office; the Printer having an imprest of about £2,800, which is recouped every month by the amount of the expenditure as shown on the vouchers. The advertising in the Government Gazette is of considerable value. It is conducted for the most part by agents, who are allowed 10 per cent, on the amount of their bills. The accounts are kept by single entry, and are corresjjondingly imperfect. There is no general balance-sheet in which the cost of each branch is shown separately, nor any profit or loss account by which the value of the work done can be checked against the cost of the establishment. • ■ All the Government advertising business is managed by the Government Printer. Any department requiring an advertisement to be published sends to the Printer a printed form with each advertisement, stating the newspaper in which it is to be published, and the number of insertions; and these orders are all entered in an order-book. Files of all newspapers are kept, and the advertisements checked off against the orders and the bills. The bills are sent in from time to time, as a rule monthly, but not for sums less than 205.; and they are entered in a register of accounts, and also in a book which is kept against each newspaper. A ledger is also kept against each department of the Government, showing the amount of advertising done for each. No special use, however, is made of the latter, as the whole advertising of the Government is charged on one vote, not against each department.

In Queensland also all the advertising business of the Government is done through the Printing Office. Printed orders to advertise, which are issued in books to the several departments, are sent to the Government Printer, who thereupon puts the advertisements in the various newspapers as directed. Officers in the country who are empowered to advertise are supplied with the same books. The latter, however, send the order to the newspapers whence it comes to the Printing Office attached to the voucher for payment. All advertising accounts are checked by the Government Printer. Files of all newspapers are kept, and when any claim for payment is made the advertisement is turned up and marked as paid, a plan which renders a double payment impossible. A scale of the rate of advertising in each paper is kept, at so much per inch of so many lines to the inch for different classes of type. All accounts are rigidly checked by this rule, and no spacing-out is allowed beyond. Advertising accounts are very frequently cut down and expense saved. A vote for advertising is taken for each department, which is charged with the payments made by the Government Printer for advertisements inserted by order of the department. The Parliamentary debates are reported by the Government reporting staff, and printed at the Government Printing Office, and are brought out the next morning in the form of a sheet for distribution by the newspapers, for which they pay at the rate of 3s. 3d. a hundred. The printing is finished by about half-past five in the morning, and is sent off immediately to two of the Brisbane morning papers, and by the morning trains to the country papers. They are sent to the northern papers by the first mail. Upwards of 7,000 copies are issued daily in this form. Every member gets two copies. The sheets are subsequently corrected by the members, and are thrown into the form of a royal

Queensland