REFORM PROPOSED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 66, 20 March 1943, Page 5

REFORM PROPOSED

BRITISH FOREIGN OFFICE Recd. 6 p.m. Rugby, March 18. Opening a House of Commons debate on the Government proposals for a reform of the Foreign Service, the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Mr. R. A. Law, said the reason for the proposed reforms was not inefficiency. It was simply that conditions had changed in two vital respects.

There was the disappearance of what one might call the Government class, which until relatively recently in every western country was a small, restricted class responsible for the go vernment and policy in that country. In every country that class had much the same outlook and the same standard of education and values. In those circumstances it was necessary that our diplomats should be members of that class, otherwise they were likely to have very little influence in the country where they represented us. But those times were past and more recently the net for foreign officials had been cast very wide. These tendencies, already well-marked before the war, would certainly become even more definite in the postwar period, when it would be necessary that everv Yai mber of the foreign service would be in the fullest possible sense representative of every class and section of the community.

Secondly, and this was an even greater change, there had been a fusion of politics and economics in foreign affairs. The foreign service of th'* future would have to give all possible help to our exporters to revive and increase the export trade. Provision was being made that in future no young man of ability, personality and character would be prevented from entering the foreign service front a lack of means, and that every recruit should receive the fullest possible training not only in foreign languages, but also in commercial practice, economic practice, trade union law, etc.

The House approved the proposals by 153 votes to six.—B.O.W.