JUNE 1.] THE NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE. 1375

OFFICE LOAN ACCOUNT for the Year ended 31st MARCH, 1905, compared with the Financial Year ended 31st MARCH, 1904.

Cash in the Public Account
Investment Account | .. .. |
| 9,393 15 7 | | .. .. |
| £450,290 15 9 | Totals | .. £19,536 18 1 |

LOAN ACCOUNT for the Year ended 31st March, 1905, compared with the Financial Year ended 31st MARCH, 1904.

LOAN ACCOUNT for the Year ended 31st MARCH, 1905, compared with the Financial Year ended 31st MARCH, 1904.

1903, ACCOUNT for the Year ended 31st MARCH, 1905, compared with the Financial Year ended 31st MARCH, 1904.

Investment Account—
75,000 preference shares issued by the Bank of New Zealand | .. 500,000 0 0 |
| 500,000 0 0 | | |
| £1,000,000 0 0 | Totals | .. £500,000 0 0 |

ROBERT J. COLLINS,
Assistant Secretary and Accountant.

JAMES B. HEYWOOD,
Secretary to the Treasury.

The foregoing accounts have been examined and found correct, subject to the following remarks :—
(1.) The Customs, Railways, and Territorial Revenue receipts are not now examined by the Audit Office.
(2.) The Audit Office is unable satisfactorily to verify the receipts of gold revenue, through the failure of the Mines Department to comply with a requisition for a certified statement of the amounts collectible as such revenue.
(3.) Old-age Pension instalments to the amount of £3,601 11s. 3d. were paid by the Postmaster-General before the moneys necessary, in order to enable such instalments to be paid, had, by the Colonial Treasurer, been paid out of the Consolidated Fund into the Post Office account by way of imprest, in accordance with the provisions of section 58 of “The Old-age Pensions Act, 1898.”
(4.) The Treasury Cashier, out of moneys issued to him by way of imprest under appropriations, paid and advanced, for expenditure to be charged to the State Coal-mines Account, £2,200 17s. 7d. for which there was at the time no appropriation.
(5.) A few payments which the Governor’s Salary and Allowances Act operated to prohibit till appropriation was passed under section 3 of “The Public Revenues Acts Amendment Act, 1900,” were made, before such appropriation, out of moneys issued by way of imprest.
(6.) The subsidies payable under Act to local authorities were in some cases paid subject to a deduction, not agreed to by the local authority, of an amount claimed by the Working Railways Department as a contribution towards the expense of maintaining a combined road and railway bridge.
(7.) The expenditure on telephone exchanges includes expenditure on telephone-exchange connections supplied free of charge to hospitals, homes, orphanages, benevolent institutions, fire brigades, &c.
(8.) In the statement of the receipts and expenditure of the Conversion Account, the amount entered as balance in the hands of Stock Agents includes payments which were made in May, 1904, to officers of the Agent-General’s Department for services rendered by them to such agents, but of which a sum of £300 was not authorised by the Consolidated Stock Act.
(9.) The “Advances in the hands of Officers of the Government” include payments to the amount of £4,545 12s. 8d., though the accounts of the same were received at the Treasury before the close of the year.

J. K. WARBURTON,
Controller and Auditor-General.

The following remarks are necessary in reply :—
(1.) Is in accordance with law.
(2.) Certified statements are not by law required.
(3.) Paid by the Post Office under authority of section 10 of “The Public Revenues Act, 1900.”
(4.) Paid by the Cashier as an imprestee in ordinary course.
(5.) Paid by imprestees in ordinary course.
(6 and 7.) Correct. No remarks necessary.
(8.) The sum of £300, as mentioned, will be placed upon the estimates of the current year. It has been the custom to make these payments for many years past.
(9.) These outstandings are known by the Audit Office to be unavoidable.

R. J. SEDDON,
Colonial Treasurer.

17th May, 1905.