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AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE

REVELATIONS OF A DIPLOMAT I first joined the Foreign Office thirty-seven years ago. writes Sir Robert Vansittart in "The Listener.” Those were spacious days and —compared with our own —very leisurely. There was actually time for hobbies. We used to turn up at twelve, adjourn at one-thirty for lunch, and break up at six. And only a few years earlier one young man— I admit that he got the sack—used to drift around the Departments in the afternoon with two packs of cards in his tail pocket. We mostly used to wear tail-coats and tophats in those days. A little while ago I read a book, published in America and called “Only Yesterday.” How quickly we forget the small ways and means of our furiously fleeting lives, and take for granted the habits, the tricks, the monkeytricks of what seems to us the present. I came into the Foreign Office, thirty-seven years ago bursting with zeal, and with my head full of Talleyrand and Metternich; but all I had to do for a. long while was to cypher and to copy-—long-hand. At last I saw in a corner on one memorable afternoon a thing covered with a dusty tarpaulin, like that comfortable gun that you see on landing at Dover. 1 got the dusty tarpaulin off. and underneath was something that I’d never seen before — a typewriter. 1 thought, “Now, this is fun,” and so instead of copying a despatch in long-hand I sat down to hammer it out with one linger, when all my elders burst in upon me in a fury, exclaiming: “What arc yon fooling about with that thing for? Don’t you know we’re in a hurry'!”

Copying long-hand recalls one of the most venerable grey-beards -who were our Ambassadors when f first entered the service—incredibly ok! they seemed Io ;t boy, of course. Once a week he used to put on his top-hat and go and see the equally venerable greywhiskered Minister of Foreign Affairs of the country to which he was accredited, and then come back and write it all down in long-hand for the Foreign Office bag, and the secretaries used to copy it in long-hand. His dispa Lelies ran, “1 said to his Excellency''

“11 is Excellency said to me.” and so it went, on . . . just, like a game called “Consequences.” But bis last sentence was invariable: “I attach, however, no importance to anything that his Excellency says.”

But I must drop reminiscences, and get on with telling you something of the modern Foreign Oilice. But. don't think the ancient one didn't take itself seriously. We took ourselves very seriously forty years ago. Men have always taken themselves seriously: perhaps that is why they have so often been wrong.

The organisation of our modern machine is not elaborate. The Secretary of State has immediately beneath him a Rermanent Under-Secretary, himself assiste<l by four or five Assistant Un-der-Secretaries. each responsible for a group of Departments—-these arc civil servants; and. in a dilTorent category, a Parliamentary Under-Secretary to help him in his business with ami

communications to the two Houses of Parliament; this post is held by a politician below Cabinet rank. At the side of the Departments of Ihe Office there is a small band (now four in number) of Legal Advisers, for many

ui' the: questions which v, o Imw. :.- handle are closely concerned with In to.rnai ional Law. both public and pri

vate. The political departments of the Office are in the main arranged geographically. There are eight of these.

VARIOUS DEPARTMENTS It is, however, clear that this cannot he the only division of work in the Foreign Office: there are certain questions which must be treated in the same way all the world over; and for this purpose there are departments which deal with a. whole subject irrespective of geographical status. The Consular Department., for instance, deals with the administration of the British Consular Service and the personal affairs of British subjects in all foreign countries. These affairs are of infinite variety ami may range from the repatriation of a distressed British elephant, to an important claim against a foreign Government arising out of a denial of justice. The Treaty Department and its subsidiaries, the Passport Office and the Passport Control Department, deal with a host, of activities ranging from treaty formalities to the repatriation of foreign lunatics; questions of ceremonial precedence. nationality, marriages abroad and. other conundrums of international law. not forgetting the administration of the King’s Regulations governing the wearing of foreign orders by British subjects, which has been a jealously guarded Royal prerogative since that far-off day -when it is said, Queen Elizabeth, confronted by two of her courtiers resplendent in the insignia of decorations conferred upon them by a foreign monarch, exclaimed in regal anger: “My dogs shall wear no collars but mine own!” and threw them into prison. The Librarian s Department deals with requests for all kinds of historical information, international, scientific, and literary congresses, and the legislation and authentication of British documents for use in foreign courts of law. There are also other departments to deal with economics, the supply of information to the Dominion on foreign affairs; and the important Establishment and Finance

- Department. t . : Although meetings of officials and I (•onferenc.es have their full place, most of the work of the Foreign Office is i done on paper, by what is called “min-1 uting.” When a. dispatch, letter,’ or, telegram is received, it is registered• and placed in a jacket, bearing on its j I front a typed synopsis of its subject.; ! This is then provided with any pre-j vious papers on the same topic, and i any other papers containing useful! precedents (our indexes are very good, I and we can pick up all the relevant material at remarkably short notice), and soul to the junior in the appro-[ prial.e department. Every opportunity | is now given to young men to show their ability. In the older world theirj scope was far more restricted. The.! junior expresses his opinion as to the.. action which should be adopted and passes the paper up to the official j above him. who will then consider it | and ordinarily send it to the head ol i his department. Most papers stop! there: but. die more important of j course go higher still—to an Assistant! Hinder-Secretary, Io the Permanent, I Fmler-See.retary. and the most imporj taut of all to the Secretary of State ! himself. ’rite final decision once taken. ;the paper goes back again to the de- '! partmenl for a draft embodying tin' anti tion directed: and this, after final ap'lproval of the Head of the Department, ■jor a higher official, is typed and sent ' I 01.*.. ■’ We are careful not to work in watertight compartments: we refer every

paper to such other department as may be interested, before taking the action, we propose. This is done by sending papers round in locked wooden boxes covered with red or black leather, to which comparatively few people have a key (the work of our own locksmith). A paper label bears | the name of the recipient; if there is ;no great hurry in. dealing with the I matter, the label is of white paper: a j green label means “get on with it fairly fast”; and a red label means “deal I with it urgently.”

; INCREASED WORK I I Now I want to give you some idea j of the way in -which the work of the i Foreign Office has increased. In 1902 i the year in which I. joined the service, ' there were received some fifty-four j thousand dispatches, telegrams, ' and I letters to be dealt with officially, and ! the same number of communications [ were sent, out of the Office; in 1938 the number of receipts was nearly a. quarter of a million; and the outgoing communications amounted to at least. ■ live times the number of incomingpapers. You may well ask whether ; this is a sign of increasing efficiency I or of man’s increasing itch to compli-j Scale existence, and one- day I may try; 'to give you the answer. But to-day I; I will only tell you that this mounting! record is not the whole truth. The in- 1 i crease in business is even greater than! appears at first, sight; before the! ; Great War the Foreign Office dealt! I with a large number of commercial' ’matters. Now. except in matters of; 'principle, and those requiring negoiia-i j. tions with foreign Governments, these i | commercial affairs are handled by the | Department of Overseas Trade, which, j is the joint child of the Board of Trade ; and the Foreign Office —and a very ac-| live child too. Further, in the simpler world of 1902, the Foreign Office ad-! I ministered the affairs of Uganda, East; Africa, Somaliland. and Zanzibar--subjects since very properly transferred to the Colonial Office, for admini intration is not the sphere of the.

Foreign Office. After the war, however. 1 , there was a moment when the Foreign j Office ami the Colonial Office compel-j ed for the. administration of Pales-1 line. 1 am glad to say that, the Foreign , , Office lost. i ! You may ask how the staff ol the' Foreign Office has grown to meet iliis; | great increase in business. In 1902 the.; I Office contained about a hundred and ; i fifty persons ail told (of whom only; I eight were women, and they were fyp-| i.sts): at the present time we have; about four hundred and twenty men, and three hundred and fifty women. ] The Department of Overseas Trade, ol | I which I have spoken, contains three| I hundred men and a. hundred and sixty I women. The reasons for this great and I enduring blizzard of papers are obI vious; von have only to look round at the condition of the world to-day; ami what. a. world I ; I do not, however, want to talk ol I political matters, but to explain to you [the organisation of the Foreign Office; s<> I will go on to speak of its relai lions with the diplomatic and consular j services. The Foreign Office and the ; Diplomatic Service are now one. There was always a. small quantity of interI change between the two —1 spent all • Imy younger years in the Diplomatic, ■i Service —but now they are merged, ■laud a young man on his entry goes . backwards and forwards between the two for a good many years, probably i until lie. reaches the rank of .Minister. - The advantages of this amalgamation r are clear; while in the Office. Im sees

how dispatches from abroad are handled. which are considered of value, and which belong to limbo; and then when he goes abroad he knows how and what to report home. A former requirement that a young diplomatist should have a little money of his own j has now- for some time been abolished (it was never a rule in the Foreign Office) and there are many who live entirely on their official salaries. Entry into the combined service is by | way of open competition. Before can-1 didates sit for the examination they l must appear before a Board of Selec-1 (ion —drawn from men of experience.' in all walks of life—which meets once ; a year, and decides whether candi-j dates have prima facie suitable qtiali-t llcations for entry. I

The Consular Service is separate I from the Diplomatic Service and the’. Foreign Office, though there are gen-] erally two or three Consuls working in I the Foreign Office, and- several posts: ai (lie head of Diplomatic Missions abroad are filled by those who have! done particularly well at. Consularj work. There is also what is called j the “Commercial 'Diplomatic Service,”* whose relations are -with the Department of Overseas Trade as well as the] Foreign Office: this provides Coinmer-j vial Secretaries and Counsellors at all) the chief Diplomatic Missions abroad,] with the important task of looking] after and encouraging British trade.] Candidates for the Consular Service] and the Commercial Diplomatic Ser-j vice take the same examination as candidates for the Foreign Office and the Diplomatic, Set-vice Members of these services are well paid, and there can hardly be a better life' for a youngman anxious to see the -world. I have been able to give you only a bare outline of the service in which I have spent my life. It, is a curious profession because it is the only one of which people outside are so often convinced that, they know more than those inside. This illusion does not | apply to Science, or Ari. or Commerce, or Law: but then our profession looks so easy, because it is dependent on the imponderable background ot expel iettee. If ever you hear that 1 have written a book on astronomy ot . gvuaetiology. you will know that, I am] only imitating some of the eminent persons who write letters to I lie ’rimes,” and that imitation is the siiievrest form of flattery. Meanwhile, if vou would bear or care to know more, about us. I would venture to recommend you to read the volume on "The, Foreign Office” in ‘'The Whitehall t ! Series'," which was written about five ; years ago. and is still a true picture lof our history and present organisaI (ion. I didn’t write it.

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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/GEST19391021.2.11

Bibliographic details

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 October 1939, Page 3

Word Count
2,226

AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE Greymouth Evening Star, 21 October 1939, Page 3

AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE Greymouth Evening Star, 21 October 1939, Page 3