A.-4,

125

is made a permanent charge and not an annual vote, it may be credited, so long only as it has been debited, at however remote a period, without exceeding the Parliamentary appropriation. Besides, when stores are supplied to other departments than the Railways, or to private persons or companies, the issues can be charged at once to their debit without interfering with the Railway accounts at all. It will be observed that a similar plan has been suggested for dealing with the Printing Office, including the Stationery Store accounts. As to any practical difficulty or inconvenience arising from the keeping of the Suspense Account, it is worth while observing the extent to which it is adopted in other colonies. It will be gathered from the above description of the public stores in the Australian Colonies that no general principle is observed as to the mode in which stores are charged in the public accounts ; in some cases they are charged finally on the votes; in some they are charged to a Suspense Account, and the issues only charged against the votes. In some cases both systems are in force in the same store. The following table will show the stores in each colony to which each of these systems is applied: —

Hence it appears that, whilst all military stores are finally charged on the votes, the railway stores are usually passed through a Suspense Account. If, then, it is admitted that a Suspense Stores Account is the most convenient machinery by which store transactions can be embodied in the public accounts, it may well be asked, and it becomes a matter worthy of favourable consideration, whether the system of stores management now in force as regards railway stores may not be applied with equal advantage to all the stores of the colony ? The Railway Stores Manager occupies in respect of the railway stores much the same position as that formerly held by the Inspector of Stores in respect to all the stores in the colony. Although the office of Inspector of Stores was abolished by the late Government, the two offices of Stores Manager for the railway stores of the Northern and Middle Island were constituted to do virtually the same work, with the additional duty of passing the store vouchers and superintending the movement of stores, when necessary, from the principal to the subordinate stores. The offices of Stores Manager for the Middle Island and Northern Island have been closed, and one Stores Manager now does the work for the whole colony He is practically the Auditor of Stores and of store accounts, and a very moderate increase to the staff of his office would enable the machinery at his command, which is admirably suited for the purpose, to be applied to the Public Works, Telegraph, Marine, and Defence Stores. If the powers of the Audit Office over the public moneys, and over the officers concerned in their receipt and payment, were extended to the public stores, as is provided by the English and some of the Colonial Acts, the audit might be practically entrusted to the office of Stores Management, and the powers of the Audit Office could be called into action only when necessary, upon the report of the Stores Manager, without throwing additional work on, or increasing the staff of, the Audit Department. The number of stores subject to the Stores Manager

CnAKaBD Finally. Ciiaeq-ed to Suspense. South "Wales The Civil Service Stores The Military Stores. The Military Stores. The Railway Stores, for goods sent by the contractors directly to the departments The Military Stores The Military Stores The Railway Stores. Victoria The Railway Stores, for goodi taken into the store. Queensland louth Australia The Railway Stores. The Railway Stores. The Waterworks Stores. The Colonial Store, for good; taken into the stores. ... The Colonial Store, for goods sent by the contractors directly to the departments.