2.
336
revenue and deposits to keep records of their collections it
seems clear that any Treasury efforts to help him were doomed
in advance to failure. Mr. Forrest frequently insisted that
he would accept no suggestion which would involve his collec-
tors in keeping records of their collections, particularly of
deposits, regardless of the requirements of proper financial
control (not to mention those Colonial Regulations of which he
professed ignorance). He refused to be helped except on
these quite unacceptable terms and it was his persistence in
this refusal, and the general attitude of which it was an
illustration, which eventually led me to express to the Honour-
able Financial Secretary the view that the records of the
Immigration Department would never be placed on a satisfactory
basis while Mr. Forrest remained in charge. If there was any
refusal to co-operate I submit that it came from Mr. Forrest
himself, who would only do so on terms which it would have been
impossible for any accountant to accept. His refusal put me
in the very difficult position of having either
(i) to help him on his own terms and abandon proper
control of the finances of the Immigration De- partment
or (ii) to endeavour to bring pressure to bear on him
from above in order to compel him to accept my essential minimum requirements.
The first of these alternatives would have been a grave dere-
liction of duty on my part and such a course could not for one
moment have been followed. Such persuasive arguments as I
was able to use and I doubt the value of any arguments in
the mental condition of Mr. Forrest in those days
failed, I was forced to adopt the latter course. As you are
aware, however, Mr. Butters and I did not receive the support
which we had counted upon.
having
3. But even had I succeeded in persuading Mr. Forrest
to accept these minimum requirements, the continually changing
organisation of his department and the continued uncertainty
of his policy regarding the admission to the Colony of persons
not in possession of valid entry documents (a policy which I