1.—14.

1927. NEW ZBALAND.

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE (REPORTS OF THE). (Mr. NASH, Chairman.)

Presented to the House of Representatives, and ordered to be printed.

ORDERS OF REFERENCE. Extracts from the Journals of the House of Representatives. Thursday, the 14th Day of July, 1927. Ordered, " That a Select Committee be appointed, consisting of ten members, to examine into and report upon such questions relating to the Public Accounts as it may think desirable or that may be referred to it by the House or the Government, and also into all matters relating to the finances of the Dominion which the Government may refer to it. to have power to call for persons and papers ; three to be a quorum : the Committee to consist of Mr. A. Hamilton, Mr. Howard, Mr. D. Jones, Sir John Luke, Mr. Nash, Mr. Sidey, Mr. Sullivan, Mr, Tapley, the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Ward, and the mover." —(Hon. Mr, Downie Stewart.) Wednesday, the 26th Day of October, 1927. Ordered, " That tlie Post and Telegraph Amendment Bill be referred to the Public Accounts Committee."— (Hon. Mr. Nosworthy.)

REPORTS. Post and Telegraph Amendment Bill. The Public Accounts Committee, to which was referred the above-mentioned Bill, has the honour to report that it has heard evidence on and carefully considered the provisions of the said Bill. The Committee recommends that the Bill be allowed to proceed without amendment. Minutes of evidence are attached hereto. 4th November, 1927.

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. Friday, 4th November, 1927. Mr. G. McNamara, Secretary, Post and Telegraph Department, examined. The Chairman.'] Will you make a statement to the Committee, Mr. McNamara ? —Yes, sir. The Bill, although containing very many clauses in Part I, is really simple in effect. The number of the clauses is only occasioned by the fact that our accounts are touched upon in many Acts, and they are all machinery amendments. Briefly, the reason for the amendment is this : For many years the Post and Telegraph Department has been working under a system of imprest accounts. That means that we are supposed to hand the whole of our revenue to the Treasury, and to receive back from them the amount of money that we pay out. The total amounts to about £6,000,000. Now, 1 think it will be realized that that is quite impossible in these days, when the volume of business is so large ; and we are now proposing to do what we really are doing in practice, and that is to make adjustments when necessary with the Treasury. But the real object behind this Bill is to retain in the Post Office our depreciation. It has been suggested that we are altering our accounts ; but I wish to point out that our accounts were instituted some fifty or sixty years ago. They were established by a very esteemed gentleman, Mr. Warburton ; and I would like to say at this stage that we do not propose to alter those accounts in