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It is not easy to believe that the comparatively small accounts of this Colony really require the employment of four European officers and it is hard to resist the conclusion that Hongkong is in fact paying for the audit of the accounts of Weihaiwei and the China Postal Agencies. Under the present arrangements the Colonial Auditor is absent from the Colony for a period of about twelve weeks in each year and I am confident that, if it were not for this periodical deple- tion of the local staff, it would be possible to make a reduction in the establishment.
4.
I should in any case have felt constrained to ask that the arrangement for the audit of the Weihaiwei and Postal Agencies accounts should be discontinued or materially altered since a recent incident has show that it may be attended by serious inconvenience to this Government. Mr. Phelips had proposed to make his annual visit to Weihaiwei before going on leave in November, but a break-down in health had made it necessary for him to go on leave earlier and he left Hongkong on the 9th of June. Some other arrangement had, therefore, to be made for the Weihaiwei audit. Mr. Brayn is at present on leave in Japan leaving only Mr. Dallin here and in the circumstances I have had to request Mr. Brayn to curtail his leave and to proceed direct to Weihaiwei, returning to Hongkong as soon as his work there is
completed. Meanwhile, the supervision of audit work here is
left wholly to Mr. Dallin assisted by the European Clerk.
If Mr. Dallin can carry on the work satisfactorily, which
there has not yet been time to see, the conclusion that the
existing staff is unduly large will be fairly obvious. If he
cannot, the inconvenience caused by the audit of Weihaiwei
accounts by the Hongkong staff will be clearly demonstrated.
From either point of view therefore the conclusion that the existing arrangement is disadvantageous to this Colony cannot
be gaineaid.