MR WINSTON CHURCHILL.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume L, Issue 9001, 25 January 1906, Page 2

MR WINSTON CHURCHILL.

"UNDER-SECRETARY FOR THE COLONIES IN THE NEW BA^NERMAN MINISTRY.

While now tlie Earl of Elgin is the head of the Department for the colonies it is Mr Winston Churchill, the Under-Secre-tary there, who bulks in popular estimation. Like his father before him he is a man who is marked out for gneat things, but whether he will realise his destiny or not remains to be seen. With a glamorous name to help him up the ladder lie has a good past and a notable present, and it is quite on the cards that his future will dwarf both, and that at no very distant date. In the meantime he will do drudge work in a Department which has been as rising as himself, and which to continue the strain is marked out to become some time or other the greatest of the Imperial State offices. Time was when the colonies counted for nothing; time was when the Department was dovetailed in with another which quite overshadowed it ; time was again when it was voted a nuisance, but this was when the colonies were considered a rather dangerous kind of burdeu. To-day the Department for the colonies stands high, for leaving out India it is the pivot on which turns the business of the entire Empire, and, if its work with autonomous possessions of our rank is more ceremonious than anything else that which deals with _th^Crown_cojonies is real and unmistake'able. The Soutß~3lricaar war "showed what a responsible office the Department for the colonies really is, for it Toused the colonies to assert themselves, and Downing sti^eet responded because the awakening was so sudden and complete. Since then it has realised its position with some satdsfaetoriness, but there is a long road to go yet ere the Department reflects the Imperial spirit in, say, the way the India Office reflects India. There they have a Minister and a Council of Advice, this sitting in London and being regularly recruited from experts on Indian affairs; and the time will come perh'ape when, the colonies will be administered in the same way. As a suggestion let us suppose the Minister and the Under-Secietary as now, but to assist both a board of colonial representatives, one for each autonomous State, properly accredited, and empowered to express the colonial will and de,?ire. It would only be in keeping with the importance of the Empire, and only a just recognition of the status of Greater Britain.