288 PROPOSED SYSTEM. 



Repair of Arsenals the value of the timber actually used with 

 which to purchase, say steel plates suitable for modern carriage 

 work, or to be simply held to the credit of the appropriation for 

 such other disposition as may be required. 



In this view material is a continuing form of the money originally 

 appropriated, which happens to be on hand because it can be 

 no longer returned to the treasury, as is done with unexpended 

 balances of money proper at the end of the fiscal year. Advantage 

 cannot be derived from this accident otherwise than by changing 

 the form in which the money is held to one more suitable to the 

 purpose for which it was appropriated, under the general dis- 

 cretionary authority by which it was first procured ; otherwise 

 we defeat the intentions of Congress, which, in appropriating for 

 the purchase of material for gun carriages in one year, could never 

 have intended it to be applied to the repairs of quarters in another 

 year. The only escape from this position seems to be that the 

 conclusion of the fiscal year bars all further responsibility under 

 appropriations and leaves all unused material open to whatever 

 application may be desired. If this be so, why wait till the 3Oth 

 of June to put such doctrine into practice? 



I owe this extension of the earlier principle of recovering shop 

 expenses, see next article, to Captain Michaelis, who used both 

 methods to advantage while applying the system at Frankford 

 Arsenal. 



(b .) Recovery of Shop Expenses. 



The charge for current shop expenses made to any job is 

 similarly a credit to the most probable appropriation. By the 

 methods described page 149, these have been directly charged to 

 the special job receiving them whenever it was possible to place 

 them at the moment the charge was incurred. But there are many 

 expenses in the nature of " fixed charges " which can only be 

 determined annually by the methods shown pages 73, 166, 217. 

 These are repaid to the proper appropriations by means similar to 

 those just described for material. See illustration with example 

 of credit sheet. 



