54 PRESENT SYSTEM. 



equally important agencies, the papers are so voluminous that 

 sixty days after the expiration of the year are allowed for their 

 completion. 



Assuming their correctness and their completion in season, 

 what is the net result of the labor they require? 



I would reply, a schedule which is true but once a year, and 

 which then only refers to what existed two months before. As 

 a periodical reckoning it may have value ; as an actual exhibit 

 it is of no account. 



When the ever-recurring question comes " How much of this 

 have we on hand ? " who ever thinks of consulting the last return, 

 and of summing up the various transactions which have since 

 affected its showing? In practice, it is easier and quite as accu- 

 rate to go to the storehouse and make a count, or else to rely on 

 the memory of the assistant storekeeper for the information 

 required. 



Inventory. 



It is, I presume, on account of this well-grounded want of con- 

 fidence in the property return, that the inventory is taken. 

 Except at small establishments, unless the inventory were com- 

 piled from the very return it is intended to check, even the two 

 months allowed would hardly suffice, without causing grave 

 interruption to the more serious business of the post. It thus 

 serves, practically, as a second return, no better than the last; 

 and, except that it has no vouchers, no worse. 



(NOTE. It took 18 men six months to make an accurate inventory of the public 

 property at Benicia Arsenal, when the command was transferred from Captain Mc- 

 Allister to Colonel Wainwright, in 1864.) 



Current Service Return. 



(See par. 3, 64 and 87, Ordnance Regulations, and Ordnance Property Regulations, 



chap. I.) 



This return, although probably intended to be made on lines 

 parallel to those of the Property Return and to cover materials 

 as well as Ordnance stores and machines, in practice has become 

 merely an accounting of tools, machines and generally of " plant "" 

 in current service. 



