CO129-590-11 Commission of Enquiry into irregularities in Immigration Departments 22-4-1941 - 19-12-1941 — Page 110

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founded, and to devise means of easing the burden which I myself

was carrying; they were later followed in this by my auropean staff

and I think I can safely ask in what Government department has the

staff on its own initiative shown such an example of loyalty and

public spirit:

employed in recruitment of men of that type, and should answer

finally the complainants whose only conception of a public office

is as an opportunity to enjoy a salary.

That example would alone justify the methods

I trust that it is unnecessary for me to repudiate any suggest

of discrimination in favour of such persons once appointed; they

have taken their turns of duty with anyone else - but have simply

justified my faith in them by harder and more faithful service.

It is time now, I think, to come to my diagnosis of the

causes which have led to a condition described as "chaos" in my

department; while admitting that the department leaves much to be

desired - and no one is more conscious than I am of what it has

still to achieve I must demur to the use of the word Chaos. A11

that can be said in favour of the term is that it probably expresses

with fair exactitude the opinion of those whose idea of a well run

department is found completely within the binding of a neatly

entered cash book or store ledger; and to that view I must answer

that the accounts of a department may be faultlessly kept and yet

the department to be entirely without value so far as its main

reason for existence is concerned; and thus a wild waste of public

money. Bookkeeping chaos is undesirable, but I think to be preferred

to the useless tidiness which was a possible alternative. That there

has been anything quite so chaotic as has been alleged in the affairs

of the Immigration Office I deny, while readily conceding that things

have been and still are far from perfect; in view of the difficulties

which I had to face and which I have attempted to summarise, with

many omissions, in the earlier part of this paper, I may perhaps be

allowed to repeat what I have written elsewhere, that the marvel is

not that the department has not worked with complete efficiency,

but that it works at all. When all is said and done, it is at least

true that we have in existence a scheme of immigration control

which keeps out the bulk of destitute or otherwise undesirable

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