CIVIL SERVANT'S CONDUCT MUST BE ABOVE SUSPICION

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6545, 29 February 1928, Page 7

CIVIL SERVANT'S CONDUCT MUST BE ABOVE SUSPICION

Official Dismissed; Another to “Resign” REPORT TABLED BY BOARD OF INQUIRY (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Feb. 27. The report of the Board of Inquiry appointed to investigate certain statements affecting civil servants, which were made in the recent law case ol the Ironmonger Company of Bankers versus Mrs. Amenta Bradley Dyne, in respect of foreign currency transactions, was laid in the, House of Commons to-night. Accompanying the report was a minute stating that the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, having carefully considered the report, "are glad to observe that, serious as were the offences in certain cases from the service point of view, no question of corruption or of use of official information occurred in any one of them. V ,‘ ‘ As a consequence of the findings the Secretary of State has directed that Mr. J. D. Gregory, Under-Secre-tary to the Foreign Office, be dismissed from the service, that Mr. O’Malley be permitted to resign, and that Lieut.Commander Maxso bo severely reprimanded and forfeit three years’ seniority."

■ v Dealings In Cui^ency. The report is divided into three parts. The first deals with the cases of the throe Foreign Office officials mentioned in connection with speculations in foreign currency. The Board came to the conclusion that while Gregory, O’Alailey and Masse neither used, nor endeavoured to f use, any official information for the purpose of their transactions, such transactions ought never to have been undertaken by civil servants, least of all by those of whom, from tho nature Of their work, the sensitiveness'and saspieion of foreign countries with regard to such dealings in their currencies cannot have been unfamiliar.

The action of these three officials in the view of the Board was inconsistent' with their obligations as civil servants. ' Ecgarding Gregory the Board stated; We cannot doubt that he was conscious of tho impropriety of what he was doing, and we do not regard It as sufficient excuse that he did not at any time make use of official information for private ends.” The case of O ’Malley, who initiated the business, the Board regards as distinguishable from Gregory’s only by the smaller volume and shorter duration of tno transactions. The Board thinks that extenuating circumstances are admissible in Mjixse’s case. The second part df the report deals with the question whether other civil servants have been engaged in similar transactions. 1

In two specifier cases in which officials had volunteered statements to the Board regarding past investments, the view is expressed on the impropriety of their actions which, however, bore no resemblance, except in form, to the systematic operations of the other three offcials mentioned, and the Board are satisfied that no question had arisen of inside information having been uped. • The third section of the report deals with the allegation that to serve his own financial ends Gregory had manipulated the publication of the Zinoviefl letter and the Note to the Soviet charge d’Affaires regarding it. What Public Expects. After a careful analysis of all the circumstances and the events regarding that episode, the conclusion reached is that not the slightest foundation exists for attaching suspicions to Gregory. In fact, the'report shows that Gregory, in Departmental minutes, advised against -the publication of the documents. Moreover, the fact that they wore published had no effect upon the tourse-of foreign exchanges. , Dealing with the position of civil servants generally, the report concludes:— “ The public expects from them a standard of integrity and conduct not only inflcpible, but also fastidinot only inflexible, but also fastidied in the past. Wc are expressing the view of the service when we say that the public has the right to expect that standard and that it is the duty of the service to sec that this expectation is fulfilled. ” Mr. J, D. Gregory was Assistant Un-dor-Seeretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Mr. 0. S’C, 0 ’Mailed was Counsellor to the British Legation at Pekin, and came into prominence in the negotiation with the Chinese Nationalist Foreign Secretary, Eugene Chen, over the Hankow affair Lieutenant-Com-mander H. F. B. Maxso is in tho list of Second and Third Secretaries in a lower salaried position.