+
22
113
founded, and to devise means of easing the burden which I myself
was carrying; they were later followed in this by my auropean staff
and I think I can safely ask in what Government department has the
staff on its own initiative shown such an example of loyalty and
public spirit:
employed in recruitment of men of that type, and should answer
finally the complainants whose only conception of a public office
is as an opportunity to enjoy a salary.
That example would alone justify the methods
I trust that it is unnecessary for me to repudiate any suggest
of discrimination in favour of such persons once appointed; they
have taken their turns of duty with anyone else - but have simply
justified my faith in them by harder and more faithful service.
It is time now, I think, to come to my diagnosis of the
causes which have led to a condition described as "chaos" in my
department; while admitting that the department leaves much to be
desired - and no one is more conscious than I am of what it has
still to achieve I must demur to the use of the word Chaos. A11
that can be said in favour of the term is that it probably expresses
with fair exactitude the opinion of those whose idea of a well run
department is found completely within the binding of a neatly
entered cash book or store ledger; and to that view I must answer
that the accounts of a department may be faultlessly kept and yet
the department to be entirely without value so far as its main
reason for existence is concerned; and thus a wild waste of public
money. Bookkeeping chaos is undesirable, but I think to be preferred
to the useless tidiness which was a possible alternative. That there
has been anything quite so chaotic as has been alleged in the affairs
of the Immigration Office I deny, while readily conceding that things
have been and still are far from perfect; in view of the difficulties
which I had to face and which I have attempted to summarise, with
many omissions, in the earlier part of this paper, I may perhaps be
allowed to repeat what I have written elsewhere, that the marvel is
not that the department has not worked with complete efficiency,
but that it works at all. When all is said and done, it is at least
true that we have in existence a scheme of immigration control
which keeps out the bulk of destitute or otherwise undesirable
Page 110Page 111