CO129-590-11 Commission of Enquiry into irregularities in Immigration Departments 22-4-1941 - 19-12-1941 — Page 46

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It was my intention to recommend to the Immigration

Officer forms of permits which would themselves constitute the

form of receipt for the fee paid. Without consulting me, however, or, as far as I am aware, the Auditor, the Immigration Officer

devised and had printed some thousands of permit forms, bound in

books of 200 each, which from my point of view were open to

almost every possible objection, including:

(a) No mention of the fee charged.

(b) No reference to the date of issue ( from which the

currency of the permit ran)

(c) Bound and numbered backwards, according to European

standards.

(d) So devised that the pasting of the applicant's

photograph on the counterfoil would have caused the

binding to burst long before the book was completed.

Eventually, on Treasury advice, these forms were

scrapped and the present system of serially numbered

booklets hurriedly substituted. About the same time

a system of records was devised by me and accepted by

the Immigration Officer, showing both quantities and

serial numbers of permits passing to and fro in the

department, to be kept by officers entrusted with:-

(a) The custody of blank permits.

(b) The receipt of blank permits for completion and

their completion.

(c) The receipt of completed permits for signature and

Their signature.

(d) The custody of completed permits.

(e) The issue of permits against the receipt of the

prescribed fees.

This system was designed to prevent permits going astray,

either by accident or design, and to assist in ensuring that all

fees were duly collected and brought to account, and was simple