CO129-398 - Individuals - 1912 — Page 315

9013 VIdzdong er wreat

YE

(deng in.

10 geiteb

ZM:

* 0898 016...

306

permitted, when my duties took me to localities favourable for such collection. The actual compilation was done after office hours, in my own house. I had virtually completed one of the four sections into which I decided to divide the work, and the other three sections were nearing completion, when I was directed by Sir Henry May to discontinue the work, apparently on the plea that it was not my business, though I had been requested to do so by the Director of the Commercial Intelligence Branch, in my capacity as its representative in Hongkong.

A

24. In September 1910 the shroff, with what I can only describe as the connivance of the accountant and other clerks who

Chinese had been forced upon me, as well as that of the employees of some of the mercantile firms in the Colony, and in direct contravention of my explicit orders, collected sums of money amounting to some $3,000, on behalf of the Government, from those firms, and decamped with it into China. As the theft was committed on a Saturday, after office hours, it was not discovered until the following Mon- -day, that is, I did not discover it until then, when the accountant, Mr Chan Pui, came and reported the fact to me on my arrival at the office that morning. I then also discovered that the shroff had been in the habit of collecting small suns from various firms ever since he had received my order, paying them in to their proper accounts, but concealing from me that such collec- -tion had been made. This could not have been done without the knowledge and connivance of the accountant, and of other Chinese clerks. The shroff's bondsmen were called upon to pay the amount of their bonds, which they did, but there still remained a sum of some $1,500 missing, as the amount of the bonds failed by that sum to cover the amount stolen. This would not have been the case had my recommendations on the subject been adopted.

25. I made a full report on the matter, at once, and later replied to certain questions contained in a minute from H.E. the Governor, Alfurther minute from him, in November, was withheld from me by Sir Henry May, and I heard nothing more of the matter until April 1911, after I had left the Colony on leave, when I received a communication from the Crown Agents for the Colonies calling upon me to pay the sum of £75, being half the net loss to the Colony by reason of the theft. No charges had, or have, been

formulated