DEPARTMENTAL ACCOUNTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18174, 21 August 1922, Page 9

DEPARTMENTAL ACCOUNTS.

Sir,—There is a very interesting note in the Budget, which everyone concerned for the financial welfare -of the country and for the clarity and accuracy of its ac-count-keeping will welcome. ' r I stated last year," the Prime Minister says, " that the preparation of departmental accounts in such a form as to express their operations on a oommercial basis was well in hand, and a number of complete balancesheets were duly laid before Parliament. Further progress has been made and the accounts to be presented this session will, with few exceptions, cover all activities of tho State." This is admirable—so far as it goes. But the financial year closed on March 31, and this is August 17. Surely four months and a-half are not required by the departments for the production of balance-sheets which any business firm would have produced in a week, at most. The balance-sheets certainly should have been available to members of Parliament before they were asked to discuss the Budget. Without them they will remain as much in the dark, in regard to many items of, expenditure', as they have been in the |>ast. It will [be time enough to express an opinion as to '.he value of the balance-sheets when we ;ee them, and it is in no carping spirit I say that most of those issued last year served very poorly the purposes for which Mr. Masscy intended them. However, one may hone for better results this year, and, meanwhile, it is not, prematura to congratulate the Prime Minister upon the reform he is striving to institute. It will not be the last of the signal services he has rendered to the country. G.H.