IMPERIAL RELATIONS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3714, 19 May 1925, Page 11

IMPERIAL RELATIONS.

THE COLONIAL OFFICE. (Fbom Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, March 14. At a complimentary dinner given m honour of Sir Timothy Coghlan, retiring Agent-General for New South Wales, after having held the position for nearly 20 years, Mr L. S. Araery was one of the guest-3 and one of the speakers. “You complain,” said Mr Amery, “of the name Colonial Office, but that name is perfectly proper in one aspect. It ife a Colonial Office. It is responsible for tho direction and development of great territories with native populations. But it is also a quite different office, or rather a different office is housed in the same building, and that is the offico which is colonial only in the sense of historical retrospect. That is to soy, the great dominions the nations with which it deals many years ago sprang out of small settlements, and were under the control of tho Colonial Office, but now that part of the office to which I belong does not exercise the functions of direction and administration. It exercises purely the functions of co-operation and acts as tho liaison ollico between tho British Government and the Governments of the sister dominions. It is, in fact, really a different office, and though that difference may bo concealed from tho outside world by the solid grey block of buildings in Downing street it is n very real one. Each port of tho Colonial Office carries on its own work in its’ own way, and I hopo that, on our side, it has contributed something to the common welfare. At r.ny rate, we can hut endeavour, whatever the name may be, to do our best for ihe welfare of the whole.”