concerned, subject to the same provision as stated in above paragraph.'

The naval appropriation act of March 4, 1911 (36 Stat. 1265, 1279), provided:

"The permanent naval supply fund created by the act of March third, eighteen hundred and ninety-three, as modified by the acts of June tenth, eighteen hundred and ninety-six, and March third, eighteen hundred and ninetyseven, and further increased by the acts of January fifth, eighteen hundred and ninety-nine, and February fourteenth, nineteen hundred and two, is hereby abolished, and of the sum remaining on the books of the Treasury to the credit of the said fund after the adjustment of all liabilities, the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized and directed to cause the sum of one million five hundred thousand dollars transferred to the credit of said fund from the general account of advances to be returned to general account of advances, and the remainder to be cov ered into the Treasury; and hereafter the naval supply account for the Naval Establishment, as created by the act of June twenty-fifth, nineteen hundred and ten, under the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts, shall govern the charging, crediting, receipt, purchase, transfer, manufacture, repair, issue, and consumption of all stores for the Naval Establishment, excepting the materials named in that act and such other materials as the Secretary of the Navy may designate: Provided, That the amount expended under general account of advances for the purchase and manufacture of stores and materials for the Naval Establishment shall not exceed the amount available for such purposes."

The general account of advances was established by act of June 19, 1878 (20 Stat. 167), which provided:

"Be it enacted, etc., That the Secretary of the Navy be, and he is hereby, authorized to issue his requisitions for advances to disbursing officers and agents of the Navy under a General account of advances,' not to exceed the total appropriation for the Navy, the amount so advanced to be exclusively used to pay current obligations upon

proper vouchers and that Pay of the Navy' shall hereafter be used only for its legitimate purpose, as provided by law.

"SEC. 2. That the amount so advanced be charged to the proper appropriations, and returned to General account of advances' by pay and counter warrant; the said charge, however, to particular appropriations, shall be limited to the amount appropriated to each.

"SEC. 3. That the Fourth Auditor shall declare the sums due from the several special appropriations upon complete vouchers, as heretofore, according to law; and he shall adjust the said liabilities with the General account of advances.'"

Referring to the acts of June 25, 1910, and March 4, 1911, the Assistant Secretary, in his letter of February states:

19,

"1. Under the interpretation placed on these two provisions by the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts, all stores on hand on July 1, 1910, were covered into a naval supply account, and when issued for use were charged to the appropriations named in the requisition.

"2. Supplies purchased subsequent to the passage of this law were paid for from the General account of advances,' and turned over to the naval supply account, and when issued for use were charged to the proper appropriation requiring them.

"3. All supplies of whatever nature, both consumable and nonconsumable articles, turned in by ships going out of commission, or by ships having purchased new articles to replace the ones turned in, are charged to the naval supply account, and an 'operating credit' allowed to the proper appropriation, which credit is in effect merely a bookkeeping transaction, and does not increase the appropriation to which it is credited. When these articles are again issued, upon a requisition, the appropriation is again charged for them."

It will be observed that the act of June 25, 1910, does not contain any provision expressly requiring "all stores on hand July first, nineteen hundred and ten" (which

it directs to be charged to the naval supply account), to be charged against specific appropriations as reissued. Nor does it expressly require "surveyed material taken from repairs made to ships or plant at navy yards and stations" or "stores turned in from ships" to be so charged when reissued. The only provisions which that act contains with respect to charging an appropriation for stores issued are as to the amounts advanced for the purchase of stock or expenditures for manufactured or repaired articles for stock at navy yards or stations, and, in the proviso, that certain articles mentioned, and such others as the Secretary may designate, may be purchased by or transferred to specific appropriations before such materials are issued for use or consumption.

If, therefore, the stores on hand July 1, 1910, are to be required to be charged to specific appropriations as issued, it is because such purpose is to be inferred from the action of Congress in placing such stores in one account, rather than from anything it has said on the subject, although the provision authorizing the Secretary to transfer certain materials to specific appropriations before they are issued for use and consumption, and the fact that specific annual appropriations were to be credited with material and stores turned in, suggest the inference that all stores charged to the naval supply account should be debited to specific appropriations when issued, from whatever source such stores may have been derived.

The condition of the law down to the act of June 25, 1910, is set forth in my opinion of February 28, 1910 (28 Op. 634), in regard to the illegal increase of the naval supply fund. That fund had been established by the act of March 3, 1893 (27 Stat. 723), for the purchase of ordinary commercial supplies, and the amount thereof had been increased thereafter until it amounted legally to $2,700,000; but, as will be seen from my opinion of February 28, 1910, this fund had been augmented by the addition of stores purchased from time to time out of specific appropriations, so that in 1909 its worth was given at nearly eleven millions of dollars and the stock on hand was valued at over thirteen millions. The condition result

ing from my ruling that this increase of the naval supply fund was illegal seems to have led to the passage of the act of June 25, 1910.

I understand that there were many millions of dollars' worth of general stores on hand July 1, 1910, which, under the act of June 25, 1910, were to be charged to the naval supply account. Several millions of these, it is to be inferred, had been purchased out of the naval supply fund, the law creating which in terms required it to "be reimbursed from the proper naval appropriations whenever the supplies purchased under said fund are issued for use." The rest, amounting also to many millions, were apparently the accumulation of years of purchases out of specific appropriations. Some of them were also, in all probability, stores turned in from ships when going out of commission, such as referred to in the inquiry now presented. All of these stores apparently were required by the act of June 25, 1910, to be charged to the naval supply account. Did or did not Congress intend all or any of such stores to be charged again against specific appropriations when issued for use or consumption?

It is to be observed that the law, as it stood prior to the act of June 25, 1910, apparently did not require general stores on hand theretofore purchased out of specific appropriations to be recharged to such appropriations when issued for use or consumption, either to the bureaus under whose appropriation they were purchased or to another bureau. (See act of Mar. 2, 1889, 25 Stat. 817, 818, and act of June 30, 1890, as amended by the act of Mar. 2, 1891, 26 Stat. 807, referred to in my opinion of Feb. 28, 1910.) But, as stated, stores purchased out of the naval supply fund, as well as stores purchased out of general account of advances, were expressly required to be charged to specific appropriations.

It appears that your department (which presumably best knew what was intended by the act of June 25, 1910, as that act appears, from the papers transmitted to me, to have been drawn for you by some expert accountants in the language in which it was enacted) from the first interpreted the law as requiring all stores on hand July

1, 1910, to be charged against specific appropriations as issued, from whatever source they were derived; and it seems fair to assume from the facts hereafter mentioned that the act of March 4, 1911, abolishing the naval supply fund and making permanent the naval supply account, was passed by Congress in the light of the interpretation that had been placed upon the former act. Thus it appears from the published reports of the hearings before the House Committee on Naval Affairs (No. 13, pp. 452-453) that on January 16, 1911, you made the following statement as to the practice under the act of June 25, 1910, in your efforts to have the naval supply fund abolished and the naval supply account created made permanent:

Secretary MEYER. The system is this: All stores were put into one property account. Hereafter no stores go to any bureau or division until they are required, and when they require them they have to pay for them out of the appropriation. Then whatever is left of an appropriation at the end of the year goes right into the Treasury. “Mr. PADGETT. And you do not have any general stores

after this?

Secretary MEYER. No. All stores on the 1st of July were turned into one property account.

"Mr. PADGETT. But what I wanted to get at was this: Those unused stores on the 1st of July go into one property account?

"Secretary MEYER. And there they remain.

“Mr. PADGETT. Now, if they go into that, will not that general property account be increased from year to year? "Secretary MEYER. No; it can not be now, because no money can be used from any appropriation until they actually need the stores, and then they pay for them; and by law now the appropriations in each bureau at the end of the year are turned into the Treasury; before, they used them to buy stores whether they needed them or not. I do not mean that as a reflection, but it had become a custom."

Later on, at the same hearing, you made the following statement (ib., p. 456):