Jong Kong.
Gabernment Boo
ouse.
31 March 1913.
193
!
Dear Mr.Harcourt,
On the occasion of my
going to Fiji you were good enough to give me permission
to write to you privately, and I now avail myself of
the privilege in order to ask your re-consideration
of the terms in which the last paragraph of your secret
despatch of the 28th. February la couched.
I confess that, when I read that paragraph, I
felt as if I had received a blow in the face from an
unseen hand. It is inconceivable that I, in my thirty-
-second year of service during the whole of which I have
never been accused of disrespect to a superior or of
want of courtesy to the public with whom I have had to
deal, should wilfully write an impertinence to the
Secretary of State.
You will, I am sure, understand that in regard
to Mr.Wodehouse's promotion I was placed in a difficult
position. In the Police Department it is usual for the
second-in-command to act in the absence of the Captain-
Superintendand. I could not conscientiously recommend
Air. Wodehouse for the advancement without the reservation
which I made. Acting appointments are made by the
Governor and are rarely questioned by the Secretary of
State. But in the Police Department an acting appointment
by me over the head of a Deputy Superintendant recommende d
by myself might be recognised as so anomalous as to call
for interference.
Hence my reservation.