CO129-508-5 Supreme Court of Hong Kong- slackness of registry accounting methods 28-10-1927 - 23-4-1928 — Page 174

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which the Deputy Registrar would be required to deal, and it will, I believe, be realized that an officer subjected

to such incessant interruptions as these matters entailed

could not give any considerable amount of time to the

checking of accounts.

I would ask that it might be borne in mind that

the accounts of the Supreme Court are subject to the

supervision of the Treasurer and that the books have through- out the material period been audited monthly.

Neither the Treasurer nor the Auditor has to my

knowledge called attention to the fact that any sums were

unpaid by the Auctioneering and Brokering Co., and this

would appear to indicate that they in their turn had been

misled, as I was, by the book entries made by the First

Bailiff.

I have long felt grave anxiety with regard to the accounting system in force in the Registry, as I felt that

no check made by me could be adequate to prevent the misapplication of funds so long as the Registrar was precluded from giving receipts,

I have on numerous occasions asked the Colonial

Treasurer to permit the issue of receipts but he has consistently declined to allow this to be done.

In conclusion I would respectfully submit that in so far as there may have been any oversight on my part such oversight was caused not by any neglect of duty on my part (for throughout the material period I consistently worked after office hours at nights and also on Saturday afternoons and Sundays) but by the concealment wilfully or otherwise

practised