FOREIGN SERVICE

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 148, 20 December 1945, Page 4

FOREIGN SERVICE

NEW METHOD OF ENTRY

LONDON, October 15

Results were recently published of the first entrance examination for posts in the ' British Foreign Service, in which candidates were selected, by the new residential method. Under this method, which vvas employed' by the Army during the war, candidates spend several days as guests at a country house where they are under observation individually and in groups by experts, and are put through a series of carefully devised tests, partly academic and partly psychological. London commentators observe the scheme forms part of the general reform of the Foreign Service introduced by Mr. Eden, in 1943, under which the diplomatic and consular services hitherto distinct were fu^d into one service. Underlying the idea is to give greater weight to the claims of character and personality in selection of candidates and to meet the demands of modern diplomacy for men versed in economic questions which play an increasingly and dominant part in international affairs—the aspect to which Mr. Bevin is known to attach the highest importance.