COPY.
Hon. Colonial Secretary,
Next to the Chief Clerk the First Registration Clerk is considered the most important member of the clerical staff. He is designated 2nd clerk and draws a salary of $1,800 to $2,100 per annum which with Exchange Compensation amounts to £270 to £315. Passed Cadets draw $1,800 without increment, or £270 per annum.
The present holder of the post, Mr. Craig, has had some experience of the office. He was placed temporarily in charge of the Registry on 10th March, 1901, at a salary of $60 per mensem, and later his appointment as 2nd clerk at a salary of $1,800 to $2,100 was made retrospective from that date. His salary with increments and Exchange Compensation at present amounts to £288 per annum.
He might therefore by now be reasonably expected to have benefited by his experience, and, if he did not originally possess the quality, to have trained himself to carefulness. This is however not the case. As an instance, the papers relating to Mr. Julyan's application for Exchange Compensation were submitted to me without a single former or precedent paper attached. I quote this as showing how little experience has done for him. As an instance of his carelessness: when his work was taken up on his departure to the Volunteer Camp, it was found that some dozen papers had been filed without being noted in the register, or had been otherwise irregularly treated. I understand too that when Mr. Craig went on long leave in 1904, there were some fifty papers found to have been treated in this manner. It is therefore not surprising that papers frequently get mislaid and sometimes lost. And even routine correspondence is sometimes irregularly treated, as an instance, the return of fines inflicted on the Post Office Staff for October, which the other day was attached not to its...