Ferdinand von Mueller

1

MS written by Georg Luehmann and signed by M.

Botanic Garden

Melbourne, 26/4/73.

Sir

I have the honor of submitting to you herewith the detail accounts duly receipted for the outlay under the votes for purchase of plants and for incidental expenses, incurred for the Botanic Garden since the commencement of the financial year and prepaid by myself.

I have found it since the last 16 years of my directorship most desirable to bear the expenditure of small current daily outlays in my department in first instance out of my private means, and to reclaim the sums from time to time, for which the most courteous facilities were ever afforded me by all successive ministerial chiefs, by placing under numbered authorities, given by the Governor in Council, quarterly or otherwise periodically a portion of all the different respective votes at the disposal of myself as a head of a department, who then brought in the accounts in ordinary course, finally to be dealt with by the Audit Commissioners.

It needs hardly any explanation that it would require the best part of a messenger's time alone to go to and fro, to obtain from any Government office in turn the cash for the incidental vote for the daily unavoidable disbursements from a penny upwards for small articles to the several pounds for freight alone of a single consignment, which may suddenly arrive and which may require urgent attention. If this course, which worked so well with the least loss of time and labor, should not be continued in regard to incidental and other expenditure, then I would respectfully solicit, that an advance be made to me from time to time out of the votes of my department, and I should of course not fail to bring before you accurate vouchers, whenever such an advance was exhausted.

As it is I have expended this month the last of my private means now, as more particularly the enormously reduced votes have forced me to bear very numerous outlays for the service of my department personally, and this has fallen with all the greater severity on me, as through the whole 21 years of my holding office my salary has been much smaller than that of any other head of a department or any other officer of the first professional class.

I should regard it as an act of kindness, if after due scrutiny and revision you will cause the accounts now submitted soon to be passed, because my London bookseller and my agents in that city will both draw on me by the incoming mail, therefore in about a week's time, for their annual accounts of 1872, which will be done through the Oriental Bank in Melbourne. Although that year my successive monthly purchases of books on plants in London has only amounted to about £70.-, and although the freights and transit expenses &c incurred that year for my scientific intercourse abroad through a London firm alone has been less than in some other years, yet I am unable to meet these drafts unless on loans, my private means being all disposed of for the sake of my scientific pursuits, and my official income being heavily taxed by the many occasional departmental obligations devolving on me.

2

On 5 May 1873, E. Agg, accountant in the Lands and Survey Department, asked: 'Will Baron von Mueller please initial all the accompanying sheets marked thus X as the a/cs will not be received at Treasury until this has been done?' M replied in a minute on 6 May: 'It has formerly never been necessary to sign each £2 form, but only the one containing the total amount. I have however gladly complied with Mr Aggs request'. The accounts were duly passed.

The Honorable the Commissioner of Lands & Survey