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in financial control would be hard to find.
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Generally, almost all these causes of unsatisfactory working could be digested into one: The unite: advice of those working in the department and best acquainted by practical experience with its peculiar problems was given second place to that of those working in far easier conditions, wit: an adequate and fully train- ed staff, uncrowded offices, and traditions to work by instead of to maxe; the man on the sot gave warning of the inevitable result, and was disregarded. To say that had my advice been taken in all cases everything would have gone well might be to go too far; but it is at least certain in my mind that had my demands been promptly met the bad effects would have been greatly minimised, and this inquiry nced not have been held at all.
If in retrospect I see good grounds for accepting blame for the conduct of the department they are that I should have abandoned a manifestly impossibie struggle as soon as it became plain that my demands for the wherewithal to carry on the new deurtaent in
to be the only way in which it could be carried on properly were unheeded; possibly I ought to have compromised; as was not so long ago suggested to me by a certain highly-placed Government officer, to the extent of taking a reasonable amount of squeeze in my department for granted, and thus i might have allayed a great deal of the sponsored discontent. i can only explain my failure to adopt either line of action by quoting the last official minute of an officer who left the service of this Government some fourteen years ago, and say that any officer worth his salt will carry on
is his work however unencouraging the conditions under which he/called
upon to work.
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