The record does not support the statement made in the plaintiff’s brief that this case involves a claim of compensation. The instrument issued by the bureau, directed to J. J. Mangham, and designated as a subpoena duces tecum, states that the inquiry and investigation that is being carried on is “as to the liability or non-liability of the employing units named above [J. J. Mangham, Bremen, Georgia, and J. J. Mangham, T/A Commercial and Exchange Bank, Bremen, Georgia], to said bureau as employers under the terms of said act.” After directing J. J. Mangham to appear and produce designated records and documents, the subpoena duces tecum asserts that the “said records and documents [are] to be used as evidence in said inquiry and investigation.” Therefore the stаtement in the plaintiff’s brief that the inquiry and investigation involved a claim dispute, or any matter other than that specifically designated in the subpoena duces tecum, is unsupported by the record, and is in the outset of this opinion rejected. Our decision is confined to the subject of the inquiry and investigation of the bureau as stated in the. subpoena duces tecum, since that is the basis upon which the entire case is founded. It is important that our decision be thus restricted to the case as made, because there might be a material difference in the pоwers of the bureau under the law if the subject of the inquiry and investigation be expanded beyond that stated in the subpoena duces tecum, to embrace the further subject of a disputed claim. Section 6 of the act relates to claims for benefits, and paragraph (g) of that section provides for the payment of fees to witnesses subpoenaed pursuant to that section. It thus appears that for witnesses appearing in response to subpoena issued under paragraph
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(li) of section 11 in connection with a disputed claim, the law provides for compensation, and it is probable that they may be required to respond to such a subpcena without regard to county lines. But there is no provision in the Georgia unemployment compensation act as amended for the payment of witnesses in connection with an inquiry or investigation to determine the liabilty or non-liability of an employer to the bureau as an employer under the act. There is no provision in the general law for the payment of witnesses residing out of the county where a civil suit is tried or an inquiry and investigation is made by this bureau. Witnesses in civil cases residing in the county are allowed a per diem under the Code, § 38-1501. Non-resident witnesses for the State in criminal cases, when the subpcena is signed by the clerk and the solicitor-general, are required to attend trial, but are paid a per diem and traveling expenses from the county treasury, as provided in the Code, §§ 38-1901 to 38-1903; but a subpoena tо a witness residing out of the county, not signed by both the clerk and the solicitor-general, is void, and a witness responding to it is not entitled to any compensation.
Commissioners of Floyd County
v.
BlacK,
65
Ga.
384;
Harris
v.
Early County,
96
Ga.
186 (
An examination of the Georgia unemployment compensation аct, and particularly section 11 thereof, discloses that the Commissioner
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of Labor and all of his authorized agents are given wide and sweeping powers, with authority to direct, inspect, and copy the private records of every person in this State having one or more employees. Paragraph (g) of section 11 empowers the commissioner to require the employer to make such entries on his records as the commissioner may desire; and it further requires that such records be open to the inspection' of the commissioner оr his authorized agents, and that he or they shall have the right to make copies of such records “at any reasonable time and as often as may be necessary.” This right and power оf the commissioner and his agents is ample to acquaint the bureau at all times with every detail that the records of such employer will disclose. Commensurate with these rights, there is here imрosed upon the commissioner and his authorized representatives a legal duty to thus deal with the records of the employer; and when this duty is performed, there is no justification for requiring thе employer to produce the original records at such time and place as the commissioner and his representatives may choose, for the purpose of enаbling them to determine from the records the liability or non-liability of such employer under the act. No information could possibly be obtained by the production of the original records that was not already in the minds of the officials of the bureau — gained from inspection, and in the files of that bureau — obtained by making copies, if those officials have performed their duties under the law. It will not be presumed that the General Assembly of this State intended by this enactment to empower the labor commissioner or his representatives to impose upon private individuals sacrifices and inconveniences which serve no purpose and contribute nothing to the full and proper administration of the law. If under the terms of the act the employer can be required in this case to transport his original records in Haralson County to an inquiry and investigation conducted by the bureau in Fulton County, such employer can by virtue of the same authority be compelled an unlimited number of times to transport his records to such inquiry and investigation by the bureau held in any county of the State, all for the purpose of supplying the bureau with information which it already has, relating to the subject of liabilty or non-liability of the employer under the act. There is neither law nor necessity for the authority here asserted and sought to be exercised by the bureau. The general law authorizing the
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issuance of a subpcena duces tecum (Code, § 38-901) contemplates that this subpoena issue only to persons not pаrties to a case, and also that a case made by the assertion in pleadings of a fact be pending in court as a condition precedent to the issuance of this subpcena. Appropriate language as to the necessity of this condition-precedent is found in
Ex parte Calhoun,
87
Ga.
359, 367 (