a ee 

BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION 
Purchases of Coal 
The General Accounting Office has indirectly challenged the prac— 
tice of accepting bids for coal, under the assumption that the commercial 
sustom in any particular neighborhood is uniform as to whether a long ton 
(2240 pounds) or a short ton (2000 pounds) is the measure of a ton of coal 
in the locality, where the specifications have been silent as to the 
number of pounds per ton. Hereafter, definite information in all speci- 
fications for coal will be required as to the number of pounds in a ton. 
P. B. A. Circular 145, Volume of Household Goods shipped at Department 
Expense. 
(See Official Record, Vol. 9, No. 15, April 10, 1930, Page 4.) 
The following abstracts of recent decisions of the Comptroller 
General of the United States are of general interest: 
Vol. 9, A~30140, page 311: Traveling Expenses — Passports — Visas - 
Passport Photographs. 
"Expenses incurred in connection with the procuring of passports, 
visas, and passport photographs, by employees traveling to foreign 
countries on official business, not being authorized by the Stan- 
dardized Travel Regulations, may not be reimbursed as official 
traveling expenses. 
A~30512, page 339: Contracts — Mistake in Bid — Withdrawal - 
Correction. 
"To authorize the correction or withdrawal of a bid before accep-— 
tance on the basis of a mistake alleged after the opening of bids, 
the evidence of mistake must be such as to show conclusively that 
a mistake was made, in what it consists, and how it occurred, re-— 
quiring the immediate presentation of such convincing proof of 
the existence and character of the error as to leave no room for 
doubt that there was in fact a bona fide mistake in the bid 
sought to be corrected or withdrawn and to remove any reasonable 
suspicion that the claim of error is for the purpose of obtaining 
some undue advantage or of avoiding the consequence of an ill- 
advised bid. 
A-~50326, page 361: Contracts ~ Mistake in Bid - Correction. 
"Where a bid to furnish a number of valves for the Government was 
accepted and thsreafter the bidder urged mistake in submission of 
the bid in that the prices quoted were based on furnishing a type 
of valve not in accordance with the specifications, the mistake 
not being apparent on the face of the bid and the difference be- 
tween the accepted bid and the other bids submitted not being 
such as to put the Government contracting officer on notice that 
