99

A.-4

In many cases the money is transmitted in parcels of coin, notes, &c, together with a small book containing a statement of the remittance, which is receipted and returned to the station. In all cases a remittance-note accompanies the cash, or the Bank receipt for a lodgment. The Receiver pays his receipts into a separate account at the Bank for each of the eight lines, six accounts being kept in one Bank and two in another From these the money is transferred by cheque weekly to the Treasury. The staff of the Railway Department, both for construction and maintenance, is paid through the Paymaster The pay-sheets for wages are prepared in the departments and sent to him at the end of each month. The salary abstracts are prepared in the Paymaster's office. All pay-sheets are signed by the Controller and the head of the department, and are paid by the Paymaster as follows. For all services on lines in connection with Adelaide, he draws one imprest from the Treasury, and pays personally in cash. For services on the distant lines, he draws a separate order on the Treasury for each payment, sending them with the vouchers to the officer in charge of the line. All payments are completed within seven days after the month. The vouchers, when complete, are sent by the Paymaster to the Audit Office. The Imprest Account is credited with the payments as appearing on the vouchers and debited with orders paid on the Treasury (See the description of the South Australian imprest system, on pages 31, 32.) A variety of books are kept by the Paymaster, resulting in a ledger containing a vast number—upwards of six hundred—of different accounts. From the ledger are abstracted the returns made to the Controller in order to make up the General Railway ledgers. From the remittance-notes the cash receipts are entered into cash-books and weekly summaries of receipts, which books are ultimately carried into what is called the " Fair Cash-book," which is kept by double entry, in which the cash is made debtor to the Bank for cheques drawn on it in favour of the Treasury, to the Treasury for its issues for expenditure, and to stations severally for the cash received from the stations, and is made creditor by the receipts paid into the Treasury, by the deposits of the cash from the stations in the Bank, and by the expenditure. The accounts are then journalized and posted in a ledger A different set of books is kept for each of the lines, whose accounts are kept entirely distinct. The entries in the Accountant's books are made up from the periodical returns made by the Traffic Auditor, the Receiver, and the Paymaster, checked with the Bank. All the money passes into the Commissioner's Account at the Bank, and is by him paid over to the Treasury weekly In the Appendix will be found the scheme of the Accountant's ledger The tickets are printed at the Government Printing Office by order of the Controller, only as required. No stock is kept on hand, except for stations on the port line, for which a small stock is kept in the Traffic Audit. The stocks on the stations are required not to sink below a fortnight's issue; no maximum limit is fixed, but the quantity issued is about three months' supply on the port line, and from six months to a year on country stations. The tickets when sent from the Printer are carefully counted by hand in the Traffic Auditor's office before being sent to the station. A receipt is always returned by the Stationmaster On some of the lines there are first, second, and third class tickets, on others, only first and second, and on the horse-power lines, only one class. The usual monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, and yearly tickets are in use, on which the Manager's signature is printed: for the larger stations they are issued by the Stationmaster , for the smaller, by the head station at Adelaide. The name of the holder is written. Children's tickets at half-price are issued by cutting ordinary tickets into two, the price of the whole ticket being brought on charge, and the unissued half being kept on the station as " outstandings," which are cleared off by being sold until the end of the year, when the balance is returned to Audit and written off. School tickets are issued for a single journey, single and return, but these are without the names of the stations either "to " or " from," which are

Appendix D.