Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

A compendium of official documents relative to native affairs in the South Island, Volume One.

The Comptroller to the Hon. the Colonial Secretary

The Comptroller to the Hon. the Colonial Secretary.

Comptroller's Office, 31st August, 1868.

Sir,—

I beg to thank you for your letter of the 29th instant, which enables me to remove from your mind a serious misapprehension of the meaning of my memorandum to the Committee. Perhaps it would be better if I were to state fully the circumstances of the case, upon which you are not probably in complete possession.

When I first became Comptroller I took exception to the issue of money held in trust by the Government, because the Comptroller's Act did not authorize the payment into or out of the Public Account of any money, except money legally payable for or on account of the revenue. Mr. Fitzherbert, however, strongly urged the interpretation of the Act to include all moneys held by the Government. I gave way to this view, recording my opinion in writing (see letter to the Treasurer of July 5th, 1867,) that I would continue these issues only until the next Session of the Assembly, when (should no alteration of the law be made) I should be compelled to recur to a rigid interpretation of the Act. I submit, therefore, that the Government having elected to pay these moneys into the page 170Public Account, and having so paid them in, and drawn them out by requisition on the Comptroller, from the first constitution of the latter office, are deterred, in good faith, from taking advantage of the state of the law at any moment they might find it convenient. The rents of the Dunedin Reserves were, as a matter of fact, paid into the Public Account, as is proved by their being included in the requisition of the 27th June, which, had the money not been so paid in, would have been clearly a fraud on the Comptroller.

With regard to the requisition of the 27th June, by which these moneys were withdrawn from the Public Account, you are somewhat in error in supposing that the understanding was a verbal one of which no record remains.

Mr. Fitzherbert distinctly stated that understanding in his Financial Statement, recurring to it twice. He stated that those money were placed at interest in the Bank ad interim, awaiting legislative enactment, by which he meant awaiting the passing of the Public Revenues Act, which he then introduced, and which created the Public Trust Fund for their special deposit, and which, by being given retrospective action to the 1st July, made them "Trust Fund" for two months prior to the time when he was speaking. That Mr. Woodward distinctly understood that the requisition of the 27th June was entirely exceptional, and was not intended to be operated on except for the purpose of placing those moneys in the Bank, is proved beyond dispute by his presenting another requisition for drawing the same sum. Had he believed that the first requisition was sufficient, it would have been a fraud to attempt to draw the money for the same service twice over. It is therefore obvious that at that time Mr. Woodward did understand that the issue of the money under the Comptroller's order was still necessary; in other words, that the money was still considered to be in the Public Account, notwithstanding the requisition of the 27th June.

You will therefore perceive that my statement of the understanding which existed as regards that money is fully corroborated both by Mr. Fitzherbert and Mr. Woodward. But further, it is not possible that Mr. Woodward can forget that during several months he was in the habit of discussing with me the question of how the large deficiency in the Trust Fund was to be made up, and that upon every occasion the sum then lying in deposit in the Bank, drawn under the requisition of the 27th June, was spoken of by him as an available asset to cover the deficiency. It was invariably so assumed upon every occasion on which the deficiency in the Trust Fund was discussed. I was repeatedly informed that this money in deposit would be paid into the Trust Fund as soon as it matured; and I have been repeatedly informed since that it had been so paid in, and never upon any occasion has it ever been hinted that it was not paid in in full.

I only learned in the Committee Room that this deposit was deemed to have been operated on by the withdrawal of the rents for the Dunedin Reserves. It now appears that the Treasury claim to have so reduced it, and that a sum of £6,000, the existence of which had throughout the whole transaction been carefully concealed from the Comptroller, was used to make up the deficiency.

While, then, I absolutely disclaim the slightest intention to cast any imputation upon Mr Fitzherbert, who fully carried out his understanding with me by his statement to the House, I feel it my duty to say that I am wholly unable to reconcile the action of the Assistant Treasurer with good faith or candour. I cannot understand how he can have been in daily communication with me upon the subject of making up the deficiency in the Public Trust Fund and can have carefully abstained from any allusion to this £6,000, which really belonged to that Fund, nor do I understand how the Treasury can have led me to suppose that they were paying in one sum of money to the Public Account when they were really paying in another.

I have no official knowledge how or when the rents of the Dunedin Reserves were paid; but if Mr. Fitzherbert was a party to the transaction, I have no doubt that he intended to pay it out of the Treasury balances, with the disposal of which it is no part of my duty to interfere, and doing which would have involved no breach of his honorable engagement to myself.

The repayment of the money drawn by the requisition of the 27th June was due in the fulfilment of an engagement; and had no such engagement existed, it is totally inexplicable to me why any part of that money was repaid into the Public Account at all. But the payment of the other £6,000 into the Public Account was incumbent on the Treasurer by law, so that he was a debtor to the Crown to that amount until the money was paid.

I have, &c.,

James Edward FitzGerald, Comptroller.

The Hon. the Colonial Secretary.


On motion of Mr. Carleton, Resolved, That the Chairman be directed to ask the Colonial Secretary if he wish to make a statement before the Committee close their inquiries.
On motion of Mr. Tancred, Resolved, That the Committee adjourn until Monday, the 7th September, at 11 o'clock a.m.