CO129-387 - Individuals - 1911 — Page 218

F

2017 yrale.

211

made, before I entered the Department, were that he should attend every other day for the purpose of paying the accumulated receipts into the bank, after having counted and "shroffed" the coins, &c:.

This arrange- -ment was made, I have every reason to believe, with official sanction. At any rate, this was the practise which obtained when I joined the Colonial Service, and it continued, with satisfactory results, and with official knowledge and implied sanction. I had long felt that the arrangement was not a good one, and I suggested, after I had succeeded to the Harbour Mastership, that the Harbour Department be provided with its own shroff, adequately bonded, but my suggestion was not approved.

Keeping 1.0.0's &c:, in a public safe.

8. Here, again, is a matter upon which there is a general misapprehension, i.e. the status of the Sailor's Home. Originally founded by individuals, members of the then principal shipping firms in the Colony, with the encouragement, but not the active support of the Government, it was eventually reorganised, and the management vested in a Committee, composed of the heads, for the time being, of the principal shipping firms, and the Harbour Master, for the time being, ex officio Honorary Secretary. Two Trustees, one of whom was the Harbour Master, ex officio, were also appointed. As time went on, old-established firms dropped out, and their places taken by new ones; but, beyond certain small advantages granted at the beginning to Messrs Jardine Matheson & Co, who originally gave the land upon which the building was erected, the Government never uid anything for the Home, nor claimed any voice in its affairs. It is situated rather over a mile from the Harbour Office.

9. The Harbour Master being, with official sanction, Honor- -ary Secretary, one of my predecessors obtained sanction for the 1st Clerk, in the Mercantile Marine Office (which is situated in the Sailor's

Home