FIRST HAND KNOWLEDGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 155, 3 July 1922, Page 4

FIRST HAND KNOWLEDGE.

It was announced the other day by the Under-Secretary for the Colonies, amid the cheers of a gathering that included many colonial administrators and officiate, that he had recommended that all future officials of the Colonial Office should be required to spend "a period of instruction in. one or other of the colonies." Mr. Churchill has not stated whether he will approve of such a regulation, and the Under-Secretary did not make it clear whether be meant "colonies' , in the new limited sense of Crown colonies or whether he used it loosely to include the Dominions. The proposal is interesting as indicating a desire in the official world in London to bring the Colonial Office more closely into touch with the oversea part of the Empire. It is in keeping with the spirit 01" the time, as opposed to tho attitude of a former age when colonies were regarded with something approaching indifference, when the staff of the Colonial Office had jobs that would have suited the character in the musical comedy who v>-as looking for Government employment from ten to three with two hours for lunch, and when the colonies were lucky if a new Minister knew exactly w'nere they all were. The Crown Colonies, which are in various stages of political development, should benefit considerably by a system of requiring Colonial Office officials to have personal experience of colonial life. They are a very important part of the Empire, and while it is Britain's policy to give them further instalments of self-government, some of these possessions must for an indefinite time to come remain under the direct control of the Colonial Office. With the Dominione the case is different. They have relations with the Colonial Office,"but they are not governed through it, and Dominion Governments are getting into the habit of looking to the Prime Minister of .Britain rather than to the Colonial Secretary as the person to whom important communications ehould be addressed. If there is to be more first-hand knowledge of the Dominions in British Government circles it ehould be required in Ministers rather than in subordinates Few British Ministers have such firsthand knowledge. Lord Salisbury visited South Africa and Australia ac a young man, but he is the only Prime Minister we can think of who liad seen for himself British communities across the seas. It may be eaid that Prime Ministers are too busy to travel, but other Ministers should not he, and it is from them that Prime Ministers are recruited. As things are. Dominion Prime Ministers visit England regularly, and other Ministers do "so from time to time, but it is rarely indeed that a member of the British Government is seen in one of the Dominions.