Memo for the appointment on a reduced salary.
M. Northcote not being a cadet. Salary therefore not in the regular Civil Service.
Sir M. H. Beach decided that Mr. Wodehouse should be appointed Registrar General on the reduced salary; but before any appointment was made the Governor, by telegraph on the 10th Oct. 1878, was asked what work was to be transferred to the police from the Registrar General. This telegram was never answered.
In the meantime a despatch was received from him, stating that he had appointed a Commission to report on the Registrar General's department. I am not aware that such report has ever reached me.
He now took up a new scheme, a great measure being the Interpretation Department, which was to supersede the Registrar General's, and the head of which was to be a Mr. Titel, who, so far from being a regular Civil Servant, was not even a British subject.
On the 21st of August 1879, he was called upon for a full statement as to how this new department was intended to work in regard to other departments; this despatch has not been answered, but I have seen in a recent despatch that he proposes answering it by next mail.
This is a good specimen of the confusion into which the public service of the colony has been thrown by Sir Henry's proceedings.
The more immediate sufferers are the unfortunate Civil Servants, like Mr. Wodehouse.
P.T.O.
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