The Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 1886. THE DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF AUDITORS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1674, 2 April 1886, Page 2

Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 1886. THE DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF AUDITORS.

Apropos ot the revelations respecting the Commercial Bank of South Australis, the Otago Daily Times opens up the question of the efficiency of auditing. • It says :— Since auditors can be deceived so readily, and by a process so childlike, we cannot but ask the question: Are auditors any good at all? The payments of these officials range from £25 to £100, and we cannot but think that under present conditions the \ money is m many oases worse than ' wasted. We understand that the examination made follows an a rule the routine of tho office of those accounts ar« under audit, and does notdeil with anything m the smallest degree outside that routine. It is made too generally by incompetent meti who ire extremely anxious not to make theuißelves disagreeable, for fear they should not be appointed anothar year. The ordinary j layman would imagine that the receipt ! for securities by a bank would be quite insufficient to aatisfy a tolerable astute man who felt his responsibilities to shareholders. A demand for the inspection of the securities themselves would have put an end to this fraud yeats ago, but such a requirement was never insisted on. If it be the whole duty of an auditor to accept all that he is told as truth, we question the oropriety of giving him £50. As we have said before, so we any again, we must have trained and responsible men' to some ex ' font responsible for losses undetected by, them. The officials are quite able to dothe regular thing ; no shareholder wants an auditor to vouch for this. But no auditor Beams to detect the irregular thing, and the ability to do this is the main purpose of holding audits. In banking, owing to the uature of the business, auditing is necessarily quite without value, unless, indeed, the auditor were daily and entirely engaged m the work, m which case the name would change with the surrounding. ; In other companies business men should be always employed who understand acturial woik, not commission Agents and clerks, who as often as not know nothing about the ' wbf fc f Ihey undertake. The Com - mercial Bank exposure ought to atvaken too credulous shareholders. '.'