CO129-590-11 Commission of Enquiry into irregularities in Immigration Departments 22-4-1941 - 19-12-1941 — Page 108

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my assistants could, in our own inexperience of the requirements,

estimate the type required. I have already referred to the help given by Mr. Middlebrook in selecting some of the European

candidates; others were chosen by myself alone, or by myself in

collaboration with a committee formed of the Chinese Members of

Council, this as regards the Chinese applicants for senior posts. I had from the first a keen appreciation of the manifold opportunities for dishonesty in work of this kind; the pullulation

of agencies accentuated the temptations. In selection of

candidates, proof of educational attainments is easy, estimation of

intelligence relatively so, but the even more essential point of

character is more difficult to gauge. I therefore make no apolágy for my action in choosing for the more responsible key-posts to be filled such men and women whom I had myself known personally for years beforehand, or persons recommended to me by such friends of

mine. In all, I appointed to posts in the department, to posts where experience would have been very desirable, but where absolute trustworthiness was essential, ten persons who could in greater or less degree be described as personal friends of my own; I have refused appointment to about as many more because they were in my opinion, while entirely reliable, unfitted temperamentally or educationally for the only posts which they are willing to accept. I have mentioned one exception to this method of selection, and I now refer to r. alter Hanning Chen, whom I personally asked to make application for the post of A.1.0., as I was in urgent need of an honest and well-educated man and did not know where to find

the person in whom I could place that degree of reliance.

Experience proved the rightness of my selection in every such case. hot all the staff resisted the temptations to dishonesty to which I have referred, and I have had to dispense with the services of eight officers since the opening of the department; while I shall not make the extravagant claim that those appointed as my personal friends have given in every case complete satisfaction as public officers, and while I must give credit to the many who were entire