A WELCOME APPOINTMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 127, 2 June 1927, Page 8

A WELCOME APPOINTMENT

The Government's decision to appoint Sir James Allen to the Legislative Council does not come as a surprise. It has been the custom to appoint High Commissioners to the Council upon their retirement from office, and thus to secure to the Government of the Day the benefit of their experience. Without decrying the value of the services of his predecessors, however, it may be said that there are excellent reasons, apart from custom, for the latest appointment. Sir James Allen went to London when the constitutional position within the Empire was in the melt-ing-pot. The acknowledgment of independent Dominion nationhood by the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations Covenant had left the unity

of Empire in a difficult and even dan- , gerous state. It was highly desirable that our representative in London should be a man of experience and knowledge, able to see pitfalls and avoid them. Sir James Allen, as one of the few politicians in Now Zealand who had made a close study of Imperial affairs, was exactly the man for the post. His services justified the expectations of all who had followed his career. Ho won the confidence of the British Government and of his colleagues from other Dominions, who showed the value they placed upon his zeal and judgment by chooskig him as their representative—though he spoke officially for a smaller Dominion. The experience which Sir James Allen has acquired will, we know, be at the service of the country. It is to be hoped that the Government will yet find a means of obtaining the benefit of his judgment and knowledge in its inner councils.