EXTERNAL RELATIONS. 49 



CRITICISMS, 

 Abstract of Purchases, C. 



Abstract C, which is made up from the cash vouchers, is signed 

 by the Commanding Officer as a sort of consolidated invoice of 

 all the material which he has bought during the past quarter, 

 uh-.tlu r the Ordnance Storekeeper has actually handled it or not. 



From this arises a sort of constructive receipt on the latter's 

 part, imposing a responsibility often assumed after the material 

 for which he receipts has been consumed. His willingness to 

 accept the responsibility is accounted for by the fact that it is 

 generally immediately discharged by the simultaneous expendi- 

 ture of the material in question ; his function has then been merely 

 a clerical one, in recording the acts of the Commanding Officer. 

 If some equally convenient way were found, I doubt whether such 

 irregular transactions would be required. 



The following objections present themselves to thus mixing the 

 accountabilities for cash and property : 



I. By taking the evidence of purchase as the sole evidence ot 

 receipt, we deprive ourselves of several aids to correct accounta- 

 bility; for a receipted cash voucher, say, for material purchased, 

 is in reality only evidence as to the satisfaction of so much of 

 the creditor's claim against the government; it is only secon- 

 dary evidence as to the items of material actually transferred to 

 the debit account of the purchaser. 



The primary evidence as to what items were really bought is 

 found in the fly, or firm bill, which usually accompanies the 

 goods purchased, and which acts, therefore, both as an invoice 

 as to items and as a demand for their equivalent in money. But 

 in practice this primary evidence is lost to sight as soon as it has 

 served the merely local purpose of furnishing the information 

 required for the preparation of the cash voucher. 



After the cash voucher is so prepared, it is sent to the creditor 

 with a cheque. But his responsibility for the correctness of the 

 items on the voucher having been impaired by their handling by 

 the purchaser, he is naturally only concerned with getting the 

 value originally demanded, having received which, he signs the 

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