EXTERNAL RELATIONS. 55 



It differs from the other return in that the Commanding Officer 

 who signs it, signs also all the vouchers to it. These include the 

 abstracts representing transfers to him from the Storekeeper; 

 ami also an abstract of such articles for which he is responsible 

 as are lost, returned to store, worn out or destroyed. 



He thus becomes the arbiter of his own accountability, and his 

 return might, as far as the responsibility it imposes is concerned, 

 be replaced by a simple unauthenticated statement of his lia- 

 bilities. 



The difference between his position and that of the Store- 

 keeper need not be dwelt on, yet there is no reason to suppose 

 that one should be held to a stricter reckoning than the other. 



I would also call attention to par. 64, Ordnance Regulations, 

 page 11, which directs the Commanding Officer to return to 

 the Ordnance Storekeeper at the end of each month " the stores 

 not required in the current service." That is, that although they 

 have been expended, i. e. t consumed on paper along with the 

 powder used in firing salutes, yet being actually still on hand, 

 unconsumed, they must be hauled back to the storehouse on the 

 monthly settling day, to be taken up on the papers with other 

 property found about the post ; to be " re-expended " whenever 

 the current service may require them. 



GENERAL REMARKS. 



As a symmetrical means of supplying information to the supe- 

 rior military authorities, it would be difficult to devise anything 

 more simple and beautiful in its general plan, than the present 

 system. It may be compared to a pyramid, the apex of which 

 is the Return, resting on the Annual Statements of receipts 

 and issues ; these being supported by the annual abstracts of 

 receipts and issues ; these by the separate quarterly abstracts ; 

 and these finally by the individual vouchers " en masse" All 

 that is generally seen of the pyramid is above ground, where the 

 force of superior criticism has gradually moulded it into a nat- 

 ural symmetry. My objection is that the process has not been 

 carried far enough down ; that many of the data which are 



