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13. Mr. Forrest has told us that his failure was due, firstly, to his belief that the system which long had been in force in the passport control branch of the Police Department would be sufficient for the new Department, with some slight extension and enlargement, and, secondly, to his inability to get from the Treasury the trained shroffs he required.. The passport control branch had been taken over on 18th November, and the system, suitable no doubt, and adequate for such a small self-contained branch, was vainly endeavouring to adapt itself to the manifold calls which the public was making on the Immigration Department. We find it difficult to accept Mr. Forrest's first explana- tion, not only because it must have been clear from the very outset that no such accounting system, operated by one shroff and one clerk, could possibly cope with the requirements of a large and very busy office, but also because on 29th November, after eleven days practical experience of the adequacy or otherwise of the passport book-keeping system, Mr. Forrest wrote a minute to the Honourable the Colonial Secretary in the course of which he said :-

"The immediately urgent work of purely administrative type to which I should be devoting my attention but which is being all but completely neglected, comprises, I conceive, the following:-

financial control and office

routine."

As regards his second explanation we concede that Mr. Forrest had desperate need of additional shroffs and that trained and experienced shroffs were hard to come by, but we cannot agree that the lack of such officers is any excuse for the failure to provide for the new Department at least a proper system of accounting and records. If such a system had existed, but the staff through overwork or lack of experience had failed to keep the books up to date, there would have been much force in this argument. In the circum- stances which Mr. Forrest permitted to exist it is beside the point.

14. It is understandable that the officer who on 29th November made so full a confession as to the absence of any accounting system in his new office should on 4th That December seek a month's postponement of the commencement of the Ordinance. any officer having got that further period of grace should during it neither arrange for an adequate system of book-keeping nor assign an accounting officer in his department to supervise the work of the shroffs is intelligible only on the assumption that the officer regarded his responsibility for large sums of public moneys as comparatively unim- portant. That the same officer having still taken no steps to institute any accounting system should oppose the suggestion for further postponement suggests an attitude of mind which we are quite unable to comprehend.

15. On 16th February, 1941, Mr. Forrest wrote to the Honourable the Colonial Secretary "An accounting system has just been finally drafted". That was approxim- ately three months after the opening of the office to the public, and one month after the Ordinance, with the full approval of Mr. Forrest, had been brought into force and effect. When questioned by our Chairman on this minute Mr. Forrest said:-

Q. In the minute that you have just quoted to us of 16th February you make the

statement "An accounting system has just been finally drafted."

A.

The word "finally" was perhaps a bit too strong; that was drafted by Mr. Taylor who was brought in from Taipo for the purpose in February. He told me he had sketched out a system.

Q. If we omit that word, "an accounting system had just been drafted"?

A. Yes.

Q. And that was months after your appointinent?

A. Yes.

Q. And considerably after this revenue earning department had been opened to the

public and was functioning?

A. Yes.

Q. Did it not occur to you that it was a remarkable state of things? No means of

ascertaining what the financial position of the department was?

A.

Yes. The department was in a rotten state: a state which was quite unparallelled. That there was no means of ascertaining the financial position of the department I deny.

Q. We have heard from Mr. Pudney and Mr. Barton and Mr. Pollard that it may be

possible to ascertain it but it is not readily ascertainable?

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