CO129-590-11 Commission of Enquiry into irregularities in Immigration Departments 22-4-1941 - 19-12-1941 — Page 98

CO129 Colonial Office Hong Kong Records 理藩院香港檔案 All

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is to provide for the difficult anacs of entrants arriving

without the requisite documents, though otherwise admissible

and to secure that such entrants should make applications

for the documents appropriate to their osse after arrival in

the Colony, and then have their casee decided in the usual

mennor. The method is in the nature of a concession to special

Cases, and was, to judge from the wording of the firet line

of 8.9 of the Ordinence and paragraph 43 of Mr. Kiddlebrook's

Report, which never intended to become a regular system of

admission, which however it has become. As a ey ten it he

everything against it; it is clumsy and wasteful of time,

adding an extra routine to the procedure of receiving and

adjudication on an application and issuing a permit; it slowe

down work of examination at the stage in which it should be

quickest in the interest of early release of shipping; it

encuribers with responsibility of anfe custody of large amounts

of onsh a mamber of officers whose prime function is not the

handling of cash at all; and it is open, especially when era-

ployed wholcenle, to the grestest dangers both in the matter

of proper return of the security money, and in the mat er of

identifiortion of the person secured with the man who later

under the same name makes application for immigration docum

ments as a relosse of the security. The matter is dealt with

at length in my minute of 23.1.41 in 0:0.2863/41.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the wholesale

use of this expodient added enormously to the work and to the

complexity of the I. office. A complete now section specially

for the work of repaying deposita moncys had to be organized:

without setual experience it could not be forcacen what

numbers would tender desh security instead of conforming with

the Ordinance's requirements before embarking for H.R.; but

it was a very mon apparent that even the percentage of pa8801F

gers arriving in possession of documents from Anonu, where

the 1.0. meinteins a fully equipped office for the purpose of

roceiving a pllcstions and issuing permits, showed in the

first month no appreciable incrcase, I understand that the

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