345
(2)
2. As regards Your Lordship's first enquiry I have to observe that the Surveyor General and the Acting Assistant Surveyor General are the only Officers with whom I have come into personal contact, and that consequently it is only in respect to them that I am able to form any reliable opinions. The latter Officer too is but temporarily employed and therefore the only one on whose ability and general efficiency I am in any way qualified and called upon to report is Mr. MOORSOM himself. Of him I am. able on the whole to give Your Lordship satisfactory assurance, as although there are failures in respect to activity and method in the administration of the office, Mr. Moorsom is nevertheless one on whose capabilities full reliance may be placed.
3. In respect to the duties which are assigned to the Officers and Clerks serving under him, I have been under the necessity of calling upon him for a report, as I am necessarily unacquainted with the detailed management of the department.
With this report before me I have, with the knowledge I possess of the works in progress, the distance separating one from the other, and the number of labourers being employed daily thereon, been able to draw tolerably accurate conclusions as to the general efficiency of the department and the possibility of making reductions in the staff.
4. Having given full consideration to these subjects, I am of opinion that, on the whole, there is no just ground of complaint, and that so long as the undertakings engaging the services of the department are so important, numerous, and widely distant, it would not be prudent to attempt any reductions other than those consequent on the approaching completion of the Reservoir at Pokfúlam.
5. I enclose, for the information of Your Lordship, a copy of the report made by Mr. MOORSOM, to which is appended a tabular statement which will afford very valuable information in respect to the Survey Department.
The Right Honourable THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY,
No. 99.
I have, &c.,
(Signed)
Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies,
&c.,
Jo.,
&c.
H. W. WHITFIELD, Major-General & Lieut-Governor,
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY TO THE OFFICER ADMINISTERING THE GOVERNMENT OF HONGKONG.
DOWNING STREET, 21st August, 1871. SIR,-I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your despatch No. 76 of 5th June, apply- ing for instructions as to the amount of security to be given by Mr. CECIL SMITH as Acting Treasurer, and stating that you yourself do not see how "he can be called upon to give any security for the "intromissions of a department the supervision of which he can in no way control."
Until the return of Sir RICHARD MACDONNELL. to the Colony, I am not disposed to make any alteration in the recent arrangements for the management of the Treasury which he recommended.
In the meantime, however, I shall wish you to procure from Mr. SMITH a full and detailed state- ment of the manner in which he executes the duties of the two offices now placed under his supervision. showing what are the hours of his attendance in each office, and what portions of the work in each department require his personal attention or presence and what can be and are done by Officers under him.
I should wish also to be informed what is the exact procedure at the Treasury in respect of the receipt and payment into the Bank of public money; what checks are established to insure the correct
and punctual transfer to the Bank of money received, and to prevent the improper drawing out of
money on public account.
I should be glad also to receive from you and Mr. AUSTIN any observations as to Mr. SMITH'S statement that you may think desirable.
I approve of your having for the present left the question of the amount of security to be given by the Acting Treasurer in abeyance.
I have, &c.,
(Signed)
KIMBERLEY.
The Officer Administering the Government of
HONGKONG.
No. 927.
(3)
GOVERNOR SIR RICHARD GRAVES MCDONNELL TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY.
GOVERNMENT HOUSE, HONGKONG, 20th January, 1872. MY LORD, I have the honour to acknowledge receipt of Your Lordship's despatch No. 99 of the 21st August last, calling for a report on the duties performed by Mr. CECIL SMITH in his double capa- city of Registrar General and Treasurer, with various details connected with the work of the two offices. 2. As Your Lordship's despatch was received here on the 3rd October last, referred to Mr. SMITH on the 9th of that month, and reported on by him on the 26th of October, I am unable to account for the delay which has taken place in replying to Your Lordship's communication, especially as the observations of the Colonial Secretary on Mr. SMITH's report are dated the 31st of last October.
3. Your Lordship's despatch and the reports thereon having been laid before me about the 5th instant, I directed a further reference to Mr. SMITH that he might see the Colonial Secretary's opinion as to the necessity for a more constant personal supervision by the Treasurer of payments into and disbursements from the Treasury.
4. Mr. SMITH's enclosed memo. of the 10th instant disposes in my opinion very satisfactorily of Mr. AUSTIN'S suggestion of more continuous personal supervision being required. Indeed, if the Co- lonial Secretary's objections were to prevail, it would seem impossible that any great mercantile or hanking business could be carried on, because no head of a large establishment could personally super- intend the actual receipt and payments of the numerous and large sums of money perpetually going on.
5. In the Treasury here such payments over the counter are reduced to a minimum by the plan which I suggested and sketched for that purpose in my despatch No. 783 of the 1st September 1869. Thereby the Oriental Bank is made the principal payer, as well as recipient of all moneys on Public Account, and consequently this system, combined with that of a daily payment into the Bank every afternoon of monies received before 2.30 P.M., is the best guarantee to the Colony of the safety and regularity of all monetary transactions at the Treasury. Therefore, although Mr. Surrн may be, as he alleges, actually in the Treasury pending most of those transactions, I submit, that the real security afforded to the Public depends on arrangements quite unconnected with Mr. SMITH's accidental presence or absence in the Treasury.
6. On the whole I see no reason to suppose that any undue risk is incurred by the public now, or that a person of Mr. SMITH's active habits and special experience is unable to attend adequately to the double duties of Treasurer, as now reconstituted by me, combined with those of Registrar General. 7. The enclosed explanation, however, will enable Her Majesty's Government to decide for itself how far it is desirable that further security be required from Mr. SMITH or any Acting Treasurer. I must, however, observe that I find it often very difficult to provide for the discharge of the duties of officers absent on leave, a difficulty greatly augmented by their receiving two months' vacation leave annually in this Colony and being permitted lately to hoard up that leave so as to use four months at once on full pay, added to a long half pay absence, to revisit Europe. Thus Mr. AUSTIN by Your pay leave. Lordship's permission will soon have four months' vacation leave and twelve months half Now, it in addition to the difficulty of finding suitable persons to fill gratuituously important and hand worked offices during so many months there be added the difficulty of giving security, Your Lordship will perhaps admit that there are grave reasons for insisting on the latter only to the extent absolutely essential.
8. I trust Your Lordship will excuse my offering the above suggestion, but I foresee so much
increasing responsibility to the Governor from the practice of combining the exceptionally the whole tion leave of absence allowed in this Colony with the regular half pay leave, that I think the whole question of the security to be required from any Hongkong Officer cannot be placed before Your Lord- ship fully, if that consequence of its application, to which I shall advert in another despatch, be lost sight of.
I have, &c., (Signed)
RICHARD GRAVES MCDONNELL.
The Right Honourable THE EARL of Kimberley,
Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies,
fc.,
&o.,
&c.