No. 138

I have had the honor to receive Your Lordship's Circular
Despatches of the 16th August, and 8th September, relating to
the measures which it may be found necessary to adopt in the
Crown Colonies for securing a sufficient audit now that the
accounts of those Colonies are no longer audited in England, and
requiring copies of any instructions that may have been issued
for the guidance of the Treasurer and Auditor with any other
general information as to the manner in which the receipt and
expenditure of Public money are controlled.

2. No Colonial Instructions as to the keeping or rendering of
the accounts of this Colony have ever been issued to either the
Treasurer or Auditor. The Draft Instructions of the Lord
Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury to the Treasurer and
Auditor respectively have been the guide as to the system to be
pursued in keeping the Accounts and checking the Revenue and
Expenditure.

3. This system may be continued for the present although it is
doubtful whether a simpler form better suited to a small
community like this might not be adopted. But, in future after the
establishment of a Legislative Council under the authority for
this purpose recently transmitted, the Colony having ceased to
be a Crown Colony, it will I presume be open to the Legislature
to establish such arrangements as seem fit; and I shall propose
to that body that a Committee of Audit should be appointed
formed by elected Members, who from time to time may satisfy
themselves and report to the Legislature as to the efficient
discharge of the duties of the audit Office.

4. In relation to this subject I shall be glad to be instructed
whether the directions contained in the Duke of Buckingham's
Despatch to my Predecessor No. 105 of the 7th December 1868, as
to the preparation of the Annual Estimates and the Financial
Returns in connection therewith, are still to be held applicable
to this Colony under the change of constitution, and in view of
the new approach of Union with the Dominion of Canada.