THE HONGKONG · TELEGRAPH.
MONDAY
MARCH
1938.
"Mi
R. EDEN has often dictated secret treaties to her," said a
certain newspaper con- gratulating the confidential typist to the Secretary of State on a well-earned New Year honour.
'Alno and alack for romance. There are
no
secret treaties "these days. And the real work of the Foreign Office is nothing like so hush-hush and con- spiratorial as the thrillers would have us believe.
The “F.0.". and the Diplo-. matic Barvico are to-day a busy organisation, whose work is voluminous rather than thrill- ing.
Some of it is just routine, Much of it is important enough. But very little of it is exciting.
If the machinery wants over- hauling which it certainly does--it is because the work has become too heavy, and because the methods and tradi- tions are ill-adapted to the new needs.
IKE so many institu- tions, it has never been 'consciously designed. It
has just grown and developed, a little haphazardly, in the 150 years of its existence.
It was only in 1782 that the Foreign Office was born. Before then foreign affairs had been dealt with haphazard by à Northern Becretary and a Southern Secte- tary, each of whom had plenty of other work to do.
But in 1782 Charles James Fox became the first Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
Two
He had a modest staff. Under Secretaries, 11 clerks, a Gazette Writer, a Latin Secretary, a Keeper of State Papers, a Deci- pherer, an Interpreter of Oriental Languages.
And abroad a dozen or so Am- bassadors and Ministers, each of who provided his own staff 'of secretaries.
In and out of the office went about a thousand dispatches a year: all, of course, handwritten, alt signed and often drafted by the Secretary of State himself.
They took days or weeks on the way, So Ambassadors and Minis- ters had a pretty free hand,
When Stratford Canning was first in Constantinople in the first years of the nineteenth century. he received only 10 dispatches from home in two years!
T
O-DAY the yearly total of correspondence in and out runs into hundreds of thousands. And every Embassy and Legation is in daily tele graphic and telephonic touch with "the omce:
Policy can still be greatly infu- enced by an Ambassador, because the Office must largely depend on his reports, on his judgment and on his advice in making up its mind on any question concerning which he 1s to 'the country accredited.
But, except in rarest cases, the effective decisions are 'ali made in- Downing Street.
So the first and daily job of an
In the news is the reorganisation of the Foreign Office. This article takes you behind the scenes,
tells you what the Foreign Office docs, Picture is of the famous Locarno Room, named after the Treaty, here seen being signed.
How the
Foreign Office Works
By W. N. EWER
Our Diplomatic Correspondent
Ambassador these days is to be n good reporter.
He has to keep the office fully and accurately informed of what is happening and what is going to happen in "his" country. Not only of its diplomacy, but of its in- ternal politics, of its economics, of a hundred and one things which of Interest either to may be the Foreign Ones Itself or to some other Government depart ment.
The other way round, as it were, he has to see that the policy of H.M.G. is rightly understood in Ruritania. He has to think not only of diplomatic interests, but of all sorts of other interests, He is publicity man as well as reporter.
"I do not look upon myself as an Ambassador so much as a commer- clal traveller." said one distin- guished diplomat to me as he was leaving for an important post. 01 course, he exaggerated. But there is point in the remark.
From
time to time he has to negotiate treatles or agree- ments, which may be dull and technical, or of grave politicni importance.
Or he may have. with infinite
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Calcutta via Singapore, Penang & Rangoon.
+Taushimaa Maru
11
tact, to smooth out some sudden and dangerous misunderstanding.
Controlled though he may be from Downing Strect, good Ambassador can do enormously valuable work. A bad 'onc, making blunders on the spot or Iveding Downing Street With wrong or inadequate Information can do incalculable harm.
And what is true of Ambassa- dors and their staffs is equally true of departmental heads in the office itself, on whose knowledge and Judgment a Secreinry of State must inevitably and con- tinually rely.
H
ow does the machine function normally? Let us take His Majesty's relations with the Republic of Ruritania, somewhere in Europe.
There is a British Ambassador in Ruritapolis, He has under him a Counsellor, two or three Secre- taries of Embassy. a Commer- cial Counsellor, Naval, Military and Air Attachés, perhaps ณ Fress Attaché.
Also in the chief towns of Ruri- tanla there are a number of Consuls and Vice-Consuls.
In the Foreign Office, Ruritania comes in the sphere of the West-
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Authorised Capital, ............... Subscribed and Paid-up Reserve Fund
£5,000,000 £2,504,100
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AD OFFICE:**** 117-122, Leadenhall Street, London, E.C.. WEST END BRANCH: 14-16, Cockapur street, London, B.W.1.
DRANCHES-Bombay, Calcutta. cut Coimbatore, Colombo, Hongkong Madras, Shanghal, Singapore.
Cali-
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General Exchange and Banking bust- ness transacted. Loans and overdrafts. granted on approved security. Current and Fixed Deposit accounts opened.
SAVINGS ACCOUNTS IN LOCAL Cum. RENCY:-Interest allowed at 2%, per
annum.
STERLING SAVINGS ACCOUNTS:- interest allowed at rates which may be obtained on application.
TRAVELLERS LETTERS OF CREDIT. TRAVELLERS'
PAS CHEQUES AND SENGER LETTERS OF CREDIT (for we on board P. & O. and B. I. Steamers and at Ports of Call) are issued at current rate of exchange and free of commission. TRAVELLERS' AMERICAN EXPRESS CHEQUES sold and cashed,
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Manager. Hongkong, 0th January, 1033,
faxon.
THE YOKOHAMA SPECIE DANK, LIMITED.
Capital (fully paid-up) Y100,000,000 Reserve Fund m
Y$135,000,000
HEAD OFFICEIMYOKOHAMA Branches, and Agepoter ut Alexandria Hongkong Rangoon
Rio de Janeiro San Francisco Seattle
Bangkok
Batavia Berlin
Hsinking
Karachi
Koba
London Los Angeles
Manila
Moll
Semarang Shanghai Alagaporn Bourabaya Bydney Tientaln Tsingtao
....Fri, 25th March
Bombay Calcutta Canton Datren
Nagasaki (Dalny) Fenstten NAKOYA
(Mukden) New York
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Tokyo Yingkow
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Osaka
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Paris Interest allowed "on" Current Abcounts. cates to be obtained on application,
Central Department, which also deals with Utopia, Welssnichtwo, Erewhon and adjacent States,
'Head of the West-Central De- partment is a Counsellor: under him two or three Secretaries, Over him an Assistant Under-Secretary in charge of a group of Depart- ments.
A dispatch comes in from the 'Ambassador. It has to be de- ciphered and registered, and so ori. Then it passes to a Secretary, who reads it and notes what he thinks should be done.
Perhaps a copy to the Board of Trade; or the dispatch, because it refers to Carmania, must be sent for comment to the North- Western Department: or such and Bush a reply is indicated.
The Hend of the Department approves or amends the sugges- tions. If it is a routine matter he will deal with it himself. If it is too important. he refers it to the Assistant Under-Secretary decision.
A SPECIMEN CASE
Case No. 2993.
A boy of fourteen months whose father died and whose mother left him to work as an amah. His grandmother looks after him and brings him most faithfully to the centre for milk. As the result of her devotion and the Society's help he is now well and thriving with seven teeth. HONGKONG SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF CHILDREN
Koom 808, Bank of East Asia Building.
HONGKONG AND SHANGHAI BANKING CORPORATION.
Authorised Capital
$50,000,000
Issued and Fully Paid-Up .... $20,000,000
Reserve Fund
Starling
*********#0,800,000 Hongkong Currency Heserve R10,000,000 Reserve Liability of Proprietoru $20,000,000 HEAD OFFICE:—HONGEONG. BOARD OF DIRECTORS;— T. E. Pearce, Esq. Chairman,
Hon. Mr. J. J. Paterson, Deputy Chairman.
J. R. Masson, Esq.
G. Miskin, Esq.
K. S. Morrison, Esq.
J. K. Bousfield, Esq. A. 11. Campton, Esq. lion. Mir, 9. H. Dodwell Hon. Mr. BT. T. Johnson A. L. Shields, B.
Sir Vandeleur M. Grayburn,
CHEF MANAGER.
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CANTON CHEFOO COLOMBO DAIREN FOOCHOW HAIPHONG HAMBURO ILANKOW HARBIN HONGKEW ILOILO
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If it is really Important it must go to the Permanent Under-Secre- Lary and perhaps to the Secretary of State himself.
They call a conference.
Them- selves, the Assistant Under-Secre- tary, hends of a couple of Depart- ments; an adviser from the Legal Department. The various De- partments provide the necessary papers.
It is decided that the Secretary of State had better see the Ruri- tanian Ambassadors to clear up one or two points. He does so, and an account of the interview gocs as a dispatch to Ruritapolis, with a copy, for information, to the Ambassador in Carmanta.
Then decision is taken: a note to the Ruritanian Government, with a covering note telling the Ambassador what line to take in presenting it, The Department drafts it: the draft is studied and revised and flanlly approved; and
and confidential."
of it goes in cipher "very secret
Na
'EXT day the Ambassa- dor reports that he has delivered it.
And the News Department is instructed to release it for publication. "Eden Warns Ruritania" say the head- lines,
But that is a high-light. Neces- sarily, when you think of two hundred thousand papers a year, most of the work is done in the Departments.
"I
am instructed by His Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs " 18 just a formula. It is a long time since Queen Vic- toria insisted that no dispatch Jenve the office before it had been `shown not only to the Prime Min- ister but to her!
So it goes on. There was a time when the aristocratic Foreign Ofen clerk spent a few hours a day copying out dispatches in a e round hand" and scaling bags.
To-day, even for the juniors, the work is always fairly hard, some- times very hard, decidedly compli- cated, and often quite responsible. And it is, by comparable standards, badly underpaid.
If reform is going not only to provide the reorganisation, redis- tribution and administrative sim- plification needed for efficiency. but also to provide an adequate supply of really first-class men for the frst-class jobs, the Treasury will have to do something about it.
To-day's Thought- TRUTH is often ecilpsed but
·never czlingulsked,
NALIVY
COUNT THE
Deposite received for need periods at ELEGRAPHS
Hongkong. 19th March, 1830.
EVERYWHERE:
JOHORE KOBE
KOWLOON
BILANCHES;—
KUALA LUMPUR
LONDON
LYONS
MALACCA
MANILA
MUAR (JOHORE)
MUKDEN
NEW YORKC
PEIPING PENANG RANGOON BAIGON
BAN FRANCISCO SHANGHAI
SINGAPORE
SOURABAYA
SUNGEI PATANI SWATOW
TIENTSIN
TOKYO
TSINGTAO
YOKOHAMA
Current Accounts opened in Local Cur-
rency and Fixed Deposits received for one year or sharter periods in Local and other currencies on terms which will be quoted on appßestion.
ALSO up to date BAFE DEPOSTI BOXES in various sites TO LET. Hongkong, 20th February, 1930,
HONGKONG SAVINGS BANE,
---The -- BunŠISORS - OF · the - abuva... Bank.... ls. conducted by the Hongkong and Shang- hai Banking Corporation. Itules may be obtained on application. FOR THE HONGKONG AND SHANGHAI BANKING CORPORATION.
V. M, GRAYBURN,
Chiel Manager. Hongkong, 26th February, 1938.
THE CHARTERED BANK OF INDIA, AUSTRALIA & CUINA.
Incorporated by Royal Charter 18.J HEAD OFFICE-LONDON. 38 Bishopsgate, E.CZ. Pald-up Capital
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ALANCHESTER BRANCH:
71 Mosley B, Manchester,
AGENCIES AND BRANCHES: Alor Star Ipoh
Amritsar
Bangkok
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Hous
Karachi
Saigon
Semarang
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Kleng Kobe Kuala
Kuching Madras Manila
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(Hhuket)
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Foreign Exchange and General Bank. ing business transacted,
*Current Arenunta opened and Fixed Deposits recalved for oño year or shorter periods at eaten which wü} be quoted an application.
The Bank's Head Office in Londen undertakes Executor & Trusted business and claims recovery of British Income Tax overpaid, on terms which, may be ascertained at any of its Agenelia & Branchés.
THE BANK OF EAST ASIA, LIMITED, -----------‛
Authorised Capital
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2,770,728.75
Prits
HEAD OFFICE:-HONGKONG 10. Des Voeux Road, Càntral BOARD OF DIRECTORS!-- Bir Shouson Chow, Chairman,
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