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is eleven. If all stores were placed under his control, the only increase to his work would be in the additional ledgers required for the Military, Telegraph, Public Works, and Marine Stores. The whole stores of the colony would then be brought under one efficient system of management and audit, and both saving and security would be a necessary result. Under the system here suggested the Stores Manager would cease to be an officer of the Railway or any other department exclusively. The railway accounts would no longer include the accounts of stores purchased, taking cognizance only of the stores issued to it for consumption. Each department might supply the Stores Manager from time to time with estimates of the stores which would be required for a given period, say yearly, and it would be the business of the Stores Department to maintain the stock necessary or each department might, as now, have the full power and responsibility of ordering what stores it required; but all would be brought on the books of the Store Manager's office. This, it will be observed, is similar to the plan adopted in those colonies where the stores are purchased on contracts made by a Tender Board. It may be objected that this system is really only a revival of the Inspector of Stores' Department under another name, but it must not be forgotten, as has been above remarked, that that office had no sooner been abolished than it was found necessary to replace it, so far as the railways were concerned, by an office of Stores Manager for each Island, which was virtually a re-establishment of the old inspectorship for a single department. It is difficult to understand why a different system of control and audit should be found necessary in the Railway Stores, than in those which are probably of equal value in the Public Works, Telegraph, Defence, and Marine Departments. In order to show the nature of the accounts which should be kept by the Stores Manager, I have appended a skeleton scheme of a general journal and ledger, which would secure a uniformity between the Stores accounts and those of the Treasury, and would present in a simple form the results of all the transactions in stores. Should it, however, be thought undesirable to unite all the stores under one office, I submit that a separate Suspense Account should be opened for the stores of each of the departments above referred to, and that some such form of general ledger should be opened in each. The balance of stores in hand, in all the departments, would then coincide with the balance of the Suspense Account in the Treasurer's annual balance-sheet. Where so large a part of the public expenditure is in the form of stores consumed, it is difficult to see why the Treasury balance-sheet should show, as a part of the balance in hand, the moneys in the hands of imprestees unaccounted for, and should not also show the value of the stores in the hands of the storekeepers into which public money has been converted.

Appendix E

XI. Op the Cost op the English Agencies. In obedience to your request conveyed to me by letter, that I would ascertain the cost of the office of the Agent-General of each of the colonies, I am able now to give the expenditure of each, as follows : — New South Wales. —The expenses of the New South "Wales Agency in England are as. follows : — £ Agent-General ~ .. 2,000 Extra expenses . 250 Secretary . 500 Chief Clerk . . 200 Clerk . ..120 Clerk . . . ..80 Emigration Officer . . 350 Contingencies .. 250 Total .. .. . £3,750 The Agent-General's salary is fixed, but his duties are not defined by statute.