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financial matters in accordance with the constitution will be secured, while
at the same time the Secretary of State's responsibility to Parliament in
respect of the broad issues of policy will be preserved.
7. As a necessary corollary of these measures of devolution the machinery by
which Governments keep the Colonial Office generally informed in advance of their
financial position and policies will need to be developed. The full success
of the policy of financial devolution, implying consultation rather than formal
approval, requires that full information of a general character should be
available to the Colonial Office at the stage when Colonial Governments are
considering their plans. This is particularly important at a time when both
the United Kingdom and Colonial Territories, along with the rest of the
Commonwealth and indeed the world as a whole, are facing economic difficulties
of extreme gravity, and when co-ordination of action in both the financial and
economic field is of special importance. I intend that the Colonial Office
should supply an increasing amount of information to Colonial Governments on
general economic and financial issues. I have no doubt that Colonial Govern-
ments themselves will readily agree that they should keep the Colonial Office
fully informed of their economic and financial position. The necessary co-
ordination between Colonial Governments and the Colonial Office can then
increasingly be secured by means of discussion between myself and members of the
Colonial Office on the one hand and Governors, Financial Secretaries and other
senior officers from Colonial Territories on the other. For the purpose of
supplying the ini ormation required I consider that Financial Secretaries should
keep in regular touch by correspondence with the Colonial Office on important
financial issues, so as to keep the Colonial Office regularly informed of major
developments. In particular a memorandum giving in broad outline the antici-
pated budgetary position and proposals should be forwarded to the Colonial Office
at as early a stage as possible in the preparation of the Estimates, so as to
give the Colonial Office an opportunity of sending the Government concerned any
comments which they may wish to make if possible before the submission of the
Estimates to the Legislative Council and in any case before the discussion
of the Estimates by the Legislative Council reaches a stage at which such
comments would no longer be effective. I should also desire to receive
advance copies of the Annual Estimates for information
purposes