I am rather worried to see the accumulation of reminders from your Department (your No. S.11445), regarding the preparation of a report as to the legislative and other steps which should be taken, so far as this Department is concerned, to secure the public safety in the event of a future emergency.

We are very much alive to the importance of this work, and, in fact, we took the initiative during the war in urging the importance of something of the kind being done as soon as hostilities concluded. We are much embarrassed, therefore, at our failure to do our part now that the task has been undertaken.

Our difficulty is one of staff. The work could only be done by someone who was here all during the war and had first-hand knowledge of the problems which arose and the measures taken to deal with them. We have only very few people now within that category and all of them are heavily engaged with other duties. It would be difficult, or impossible, I am afraid, to release any of them for a special task of this kind which, I imagine, will take a good deal of time to complete satisfactorily.

In the circumstances, I am afraid that we can only leave the work over for the time being. Owing to a revision of the Travel Permit regulations which we made some months ago, we expect an easement of pressure on this side of the house early in the New Year. We will try to take advantage of that to put someone on to the work of going over our records of the war-years and framing the report asked for in your minutes.