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staff are temporary, the majority being employed on a month- to-month basis, with a number of expatriate officers on short term contracts.
22.
The Director of Audit has also pointed out that your authority should have been obtained for the employment of certain public-spirited officers who declined to accept remuneration for their services, and I venture to hope that your covering approval may be granted for this somewhat unusual departure from normal practice.
23.
Some of the points of detail raised by the Director of Audit have been dealt with by the Financial Secretary in his Memorandum. I have no desire to over-burden this despatch by answering all those lesser points, and indeed, as indicated in paragraph 6 above, I doubt if explanations are to be obtained in all cases, Many are in respect of matters long past, and with the exception of those to which I refer below, I do not propose now to deal with them.
Should you nevertheless desire elucidation or explanation of any part of the Report I will endeavour to procure such further particulars as may be available.
24.
The establishment of a Hong Kong Government Agency in Tokyo is known to you and to His Majesty's Treasury. Such an agency was necessary if this Government's interests in Japan trade were to be adequately safe-guarded. Even approximate estimates of cost were not obtainable when the decision to establish the agency was made, and as a temporary measure it was agreed that the cost should be charged to the Japan Trade Suspense Account. It was hoped that the agency would coase to be necessary once the trade had settled down, but this hope was falsified, and accordingly matters were regularized to the extent that I issued an Imprest Warrant to the agent in Tokyo to keep him in funds, and directed that the cost of staff should be charged to the Department of Supplies, Trade and Industry's Personal Emoluments sub-head and that the remaining expenses should continue to be charged to the Suspense Account. This further temporary measure will remain in force only until the end of the present financial year, as I have further directed that a new sub- head, "Expenses of Tokyo Office", shall be inserted in the draft Estimates for 1949/50. The future of the Tokyo agency is at present again the subject of earnest consideration.
25.
Allied to the question of this Government's Agency in Tokyo is the question of payments to Mr. Galvin referred The to in paragraph 42 of the Director of Audit's Report. public spirit of Mr. Galvin was such that when, broken in health, he asked to be relieved of his honorary duties as Agent in Tokyo, he intimated that he did not wish to claim any reimbursement in respect of the expenses he had incurred
It was in safeguarding this Government's interests in Japan. only with much difficulty that he was induced to accept the sums referred to, which are believed to amount to a small fraction of his actual disbursements.
26.
The question as to the authority of the Director of Supplies, Trade and Industry to write off stores and losses has been dealt with in your savingram No. 502 of the 28th May,
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27.
I feel that I cannot conclude this despatch without paying a tribute to the work and energy of the present Director of Audit, Mr. P. H. Jennings, and also to his predecessor, Mr. A. Pollard, who, despite his age, returned to the Colony after suffering the rigours of internment in the Philippines, and set in train the investigations which his successor has now