THE AUDITOR-GENERAL AND THE AUCKLAND POLITICAL FINANCIAL REFORM ASSOCIATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9150, 4 September 1888, Page 5

THE AUDITOR-GENERAL AND THE AUCKLAND POLITICAL FINANCIAL REFORM ASSOCIATION.

The Chairman and Secretary of the above Association, by request of the Committee, addressed a letter on the '213 rd ultimo to Mr. J. E. FitzGerald, the Controller and Auditor-General, enclosing a resolution adopted by that body in reference to the valuable work lately presented to Parliament on the balance-sheets of the colony from 1832 to 1888. Mr. FitzGerald's reply was received by yesterday's post, and we publish it for general information, as well as the resolution referred to :— Copy of a resolution agreed to at a meeting of the committee of the Auckland Political Financial Reform Association, held on Monday, '20th August, 1888, at 310, Victoria Arcade, Auckland. The committee desire to record their opinion that the " balance-sheets of the colony, 1832 to 1888," prepared by J. E. FitzGerald, Esq., the Controller and AuditorGeneral, most satisfactorily fulfils its intention of "telling in a brief and intelligible form the financial history of New Zealand." The committee congratulate their members and the public on its completion, which no doubt must have been a work involving considerable time and labour, requiring special information and qualifications which perhaps no other person connected with the Government possessed in an equal degree to that of the Controller and Auditor-General. The Association will also regard this compilation with peculiar pleasure, as the committee several months ago recommended that the New Zealand accounts should be modelled after the plan adopted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in England, whose statements are issued weekly, and appear regularly in the London Gazette and the Times. Finally the committee trust that the publication of these accounts will be formally acknowledged by Parliament, and the thanks of the colony be presented to Mr. FitzGerald for his very instructive and useful work, which enables the true position of the colony, and the state of its receipts and expenditure at the end of each year, to be more clearly understood than it has been before. Audit Office, August .10, 18S8. Gentlemen, —I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 23rd instant, enclosing certain resolutions passed by the Committee of the Auckland Political Financial Reform Association on the subject of the return of the balance-sheets of the colony from 1832 to 1888. I beg you will be so good as to convey to the committee my best thanks for the terms in which it has expressed its approbation of the return in question.—l have, &c., Jam Edward FitzGerald.—John Buchanan, Esq., R. J. Duncan, Esq., &c.