The Waikato Argus GEORGE EDGECUMBE, Proprietor. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1898.

Waikato Argus, Volume V, Issue 355, 18 October 1898, Page 2

The Waikato Argus GEORGE EDGECUMBE, Proprietor. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1898.

Some papers laid on the table of the House give us an insight into one of the means adopted by the Government in the manufacture of surpluses. The correspondence opens with a memo from the Secretary of Public Works, to Mr Clapham ; " Can we take over as much as £20,000 -worth of material, and if so how can we charge it." The answer to this was: " We can only take to the extent of £12,000 for Midland Railway and £3OOO for our own Permanent Way Vote. On the following day there is a memo, to the Minister for Public Works : " Will you please approve of passing of transfer voucher for £15,000.—R. J. H. Blow, This is duly approved by Mr Hall-Jones. It also bears a memo, by the AuditorGeneral : " From no engineer or responsible officer is there a recorded report or any report known to the Audit Office that the stock is required or ought to be procured, or that the stock is in excess of the requirements for working railways, or that there is othar reason for the realisation." A statement was asked from the two Departments and the Audit Office appears to have been satisfied. On March sth, 1878, there is a memo, endorsed R.J.S., which says: "This is purely a question of administration. On the same day a memo, passed from the Auditor-General to the Assistant Auditor-General, stating that the Audit Office considers they are justified in passing the transfer and reporting the case to Parliament, but no action seems to have been taken in so reporting the matter. In July a transfer of £14,589 was sought to be made from the Consolidated Fund to the Public Works Fund. This was a reversal of the former transfer. On the 22nd the Treasury was informed that if a voucher were required the Audit Office would report the matter to Parliament. But this does not appear to have been done.

On September 9th a voucher was applied for for £17,867 to reverse the set of entries made in March. The Auditor-General remarks on this . " It seems impossible with the information at present at the disposal of the Audit Office to resist the conclusion that the original transactions arose out of the necessities of the Department of Working Railways, and not out Qf a surplus of stores, and that the stores disposed of to the Department of Public Works were not really required by that Department. The present proposed retransfer of £15,000 and the other of like amount queried in July last, aud not proceeded with by the Treasurer, stauds much on the same footing. The two sums making together £30,000 form part of the credit amounting to £157,964 in the vote for working railways for last year's account. On September loth the Auditor-General wrote that the Revenue Act did not contemplate transactions of this nature ; that they are not provided for by any Appropriation Act, and that the abstracts of the revenue and expenditure of the public account which comprise such transactions cannot completely be an index to the real purposes of the expenditure of public money appears to bo beyond all question, and if the transactions by which the property was returned to the department of working railways on March 11th had been known to the Audit Office to

have been contemplated it certainly would not have been passed, on the ground that it was not really a sale but an arrangement by which by depositing without actually parting with the property the working railways obtained an advantage to the extent of £15,000 for the public works 'votes. On October Bth Mr Seddon wrote the Auditor-General : " I very much regret that owinsr to the very severe pressure of my Parliamentary duties your memo, of 15th September should have been overlooked. In reply, it is sufficient for me to state that the Department concerned does not now desire to disturb the entries whi_i were made on MarGh 31 last connected with the sale by Railway Department of material to the Public Works Department, the proposed transfer will therefore be withdrawn. On October 11 the Auditor-General intimated that the report to Parliament could no longer be delayed. On October 15 the following memo, from the As-sistant-Controller to the AuditorGeneral passed:—"There seems to me,' in the light of the transactions which last year resulted in the vote for working railways being credited with less than £187.964, as against an estimate of £22,603 abated on the vote to be a necessity for imposing a limit to prevent the spending power under the vote being unduly enlarged by such credit." It will be our duty to comment on this correspondence in a future issue. Want of space this morning will not allow us to do so. It is absolutely necessary that the people shall be thoroughly enlightened on this business.