BRITISH COUNCIL

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25389, 12 January 1948, Page 8

BRITISH COUNCIL

EXPANSION SINCE FORMATION

ADDRESS BY MR JOHN BOSTOCK Started as a small voluntary organisation in 1934 the British Council had expanded considerably, its activities covering a wide physical area and embracing many subjects, said Mr John Bostock, first British Council representative in New Zealand, in a national broadcast last evening. In its early days the main work of the council was devoted to foreign countries, but the war, which curtailed activities in some directions, brought new responsibilities and opportunities for providing the means by which men and women from many parts of the world who found themselves in the United Kingdom could get a better insight into their new surroundings. During the war years the council established 20 centres throughout Great Britain and Collaborated with more than 300 clubs and societies in assisting and entertaining men and women from overseas. Leave courses arranged at universities and elsewhere were attended by more than 10,000 members of the Dominions and United States armed forces. Visits to factories, to mines, and to places of historic interest were also arranged for troops from abroad. That work, modified to suit present conditions, continued today, and a large part of the council’s grant was spent in the United Kingdom.

The British Council claimed no monopoly in its aims and work, said Mr Bostock. Within the British Commonwealth there were organisations, many voluntary, working to promote closer cultural relations between peoples of different lands and the British Council could often help the work of other bodies, though in some matters, such as representing the Government at UNESCO conferences, it had tasks peculiar to itself. Provision of Services The British Council wished to provide to the limit of its powers simply those services which lay within its scope and which were asked for. In each country as the requests received varied according to local conditions so did the methods by which the council sought to meet them. A point of great importance was that the Council hoped for reciprocal action in other countries by organisations with objects similar to its own. said Mr Bostock in conclusion. Nowhere was the reciprocity more desirable than among the sister nations of the British Commonwealth. Urgent practical problems weighed heavily on the peoples of all lands. The promotion of closer cultural relations and the Encouragement of interest in art. using the word in its widest sense, could do much to lighten those problems. “In Britain, which owes so much to the sister nations of the Commonwealth, a wider knowledge of developments and conditions of life in those countries is to-day desired and highly desirable. The interchange of ideas, not only between specialists in their own narrow fields but also between ordinary folk in ordinary matters of everyday concern, strengthens friendship and promotes understanding. It is with this end in view that the British Council offers its services to New Zealand,” Mr Bostock said.