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A. That is correct.
Q.
A.
You say that on the 4th December you wrote to the Colonial Secretary and asked if
the commencement of the Ordinance might be deferred?
Yes.
Q. And it was postponed from the 17th December until 14th January ?
A.
Yes.
Q. And your reasons for that was that your preliminary spade work was not completed? A. Yes.
Q. Did that preliminary spade work include devising an accounting system?
A.
I had far far too much to do.
16. Mr. Forrest as from 1st December had among his staff Mr. A. J. G. Taylor of the Senior Clerical and Accounting Staff whom Mr. Forrest himself describes as one of the best accountants in the service. He made no attempt to utilize Mr. Taylor's services as accounting officer until after Mr. Barton, Mr. Pudney' and the Auditor, Mr. Pollard, had successively reported on the financial chaos which reigned in the office. Mr. Taylor was brought into the head office a few days before the end of January and when he appeared before us on 25th March he was unable to explain to us what rudimentary system of book-keeping or records had been in force as the whole of his time had been occupied in instituting a system of accounting for deposits received and repaid. Before Mr. Taylor came into the head office there had been no deposit ledger kept, though the aggregate of deposits received and repaid was a very large sum indeed.
17. Much has been said during our public inquiry about the deposit system and the inadequacy of the imprest account. The arrival in the Colony of large numbers of Chinese who were without any immigration papers, the paramount necessity to clear ships without avoidable delay, and the natural reluctance to saddle the shipping com- pany with the responsibility for repatriating all such passengers made the introduction of a system of deposits inevitable. The fact that many such passengers had no Hong Kong currency further complicated the situation. It was unavoidable that the officers of boarding squads, though unsecured, should have to handle very large sums of money in all sorts of currencies. No one could accurately estimate just how much money would be taken in by way of deposit or how much would have to be refunded on any particular day or on any voyage of a ship. In such circumstances we do not regard as heinous Mr. Forrest's expedients to find the cash which had to be got to satisfy depositors, nor the fact that perforce his officers had to handle large sums though financially unsecured. Such situations are apt to arise when a new system is enforced, and until some suitable arrangement could be made for collecting deposits before passengers embarked for Hong Kong some such expedient had to be resorted to in order to avoid protracted delays.
18. Summarizing our conclusions on this term of reference we are satisfied that there was no adequate financial system instituted in the Immigration Department; that Mr.. Forrest was aware of this fact, as shown by his minute of 28th November and inferentially by his applying on 4th December for a postponement of the commencement of the Ordinance; and that, well aware as he was of this very serious flaw in his machinery, he appears to have regarded it as a matter of little or no moment.
The Agency System.
19. We turn now to the fourth of our terms of reference: the agency system instituted by the Immigration Department.
20.
When a system of control necessitates the completion of long and apparently complicated forms by unintelligent and illiterate members of the community it is not surprising that, in aid of applicants for permits, there sprang up a multiplicity of agents who, for a consideration, held themselves out as able to obtain permits expeditiously and with the minimum of trouble to the applicant. With such a little gold mine in view it is only natural that many of these agents were found to be corrupt and in- efficient, or that they should seek to cloak their inefficiency by attempting to bribe officers of the department. The Immigration Officer had no option but to recognize the fact of these agencies. He went further, rightly, we think, and extended recognition
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