22.
23
as
With regard to the use of prohibited forms (para 8), it would surely have been an easy thing for Commander Taylor 143 to see that the necessary erasures in all the forms were made on the very day that the forms was printed wore condemned. Thore could then have been no question of "occasional omis- sion of the necessary erasures" owing to carelessness or dis. honesty.
·
L.......
23.
Commander Taylor says (paragraph 7):- "I suggested, after I had succeeded to the Harbour Mastership, that the Harbour Department be provided with its own shroff, adequately bonded but my suggestion was not approved". Commander Taylor became Harbour Mastor on lat March 1907, and between that date and the date on which Wong Hau-nam absconded no record can be found of any suggestion put forward by him concerning the inadequate security of the Harbour Office shroff. That shroff, who used to have his headquarters in the Mercantile Marine office,with a big safe there for keeping the governmeny money collected by him, was authorised to act privately as Sailors' Home shroff at a monthly renumeration of $20 under a bond of $3,000. I have not beon able to trace the original authority for this practice, but I have ascertained that it had been in force #ithout inter- ruption for 30 years past, and only came to an end on the 22nd October 1910 as the result of the Wong Hau-nam episode. Since the 22nd October 1910 the Harbour office shroff has had nothing whatever to do with the Sailors' Home.
24.
With regard to the retention of money by the shroff (para 7) Commander Taylor contends that as the shroff had duties to per- form in connection with the Sailors' Home, which is not a Gov- ernment establishment, all his time was not at the disposal of the Government; and that it was therefore arranged before Cos- mander Taylor entered the department, that the shroff should at- tend every other day for the purpose of paying the accumulated - recsipta into the bank. He adds: "his arrangement was made have every reason to believe, with official sanction".
The
24