EMPIRE AFFAIRS

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 2 July 1925, Page 7

EMPIRE AFFAIRS

CHANGE IN ADMINISTRATION

CIVIL RESEARCH COMMITTEE

SOME OE TTS DUTIES. BY CABLE—RRESS ASSOCIATION-COPY EIGHT. LONDON, June 30. Sir Samuel M i son, who has just returned from Jamaica, where he was Governor-in-Cliief, lias been appointed Permanent Under-Secretary for Dominion Affairs. These appointments are made in fulfilment of the promise of the Prime Minister (Mr Stanley Baldwin) that changes would be made at the Cel on i a,l Office to enable more attention to be given to Dominion affairs.

In the House of Lords, Lord Balfour, in explaining the purposes of the Dominions civil research committee, said it was not similar to. the industrial research or medical research committee. Its whole analogy was with the parent committee of Imperial defence, and it no more deserved the description of research committee than did the parent committee. The new committee would not substantially modify the existing system of administration. Lord Balfour added that there was no natural method whereby the Dominions could be called to counsel at their desire if a question in which they were specially interested were raised, apart from the elaborate machinery of the Imperial Conference with its attendant inconvenience to overseas statesmen. The new committee would enable a Dominion to send a representative with the consent of the British Prime Minister to exp’ain his Government’s views on a particular subject, and the best methods whereby the joint methods of members of tile Empire may attain satisfactory results. The new committee would diminish friction between departments. He emphasised that these committees’ powers were purely advisory to the Cabinet.