iv
CROWN AGENTS' ENQUIRY COMMITTEE:
of the India Office. Mr. H. de la Bère, C.B. and Mr. F. W. Black, C.B., described the system adopted in the Contracts Departments of the War Office and the Admiralty respectively.
7. The following who are or have been officials of the Colonial Office gave evidence, namely-Sir C. P. Lucas, K.C.M.G., C.B., Mr. H. B. Cox, C.B., and Mr. R. L Antrobus, C.B., Assistant Under Secretaries of State; Sir M. F. Omunanney, G.C.M.G., I.S.O., for many years a Crown Agent and subsequently Permanent Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, and Mr. F. R. Round, C.M.G.
8. The three present Crown Agents--Sir E. E. Blake, K.C.M.G., Major M. A. Cameron, C.M.G., and Mr.W. H. Mercer, C.M.G.—each gave evidence, that of Sir E. Blake extending over three days. The members of the staff of the office, at the request of the Committee, selected from among themselves a number of representatives to place their views before the Committee. These representatives of the staff were:-Mr. E. G. Antrobus and Mr. H. F. Smith, for Classes I. and II. of the Staff; Mr. W. Eraut, for the Engineer Officers: Mr. S. C. Alford, for Class II.; Mr. Harry Martin, for Class IV.; and Miss M. E. Boddy, as representative of the Lady Clerks.
9. The witnesses who gave evidence before the Sub-Committee on Shipping and Packing Arrangements were:-Mr. J. Foster (Head of the Shipping Department of the Army and Navy Co-operative Society, Ltd.); Mr. T. II. Holt (of Messrs. J. & A. B. Freeland); Mr. H. G. Hayter (of the firm of Hayter & Hayter); and Major J. F. H. Carmichael, Mr. H. W. L. Naylor, Mr. M. S. Darroch, and Mr. A. B. Reade, of the Crown Agents' Office,
10. The Committee wish to express their acknowledgments of the courtesy with which the Secretary of State for India, the Army Council, and the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty consented to allow representatives of their Departments to appear before the Committee, and they also desire to thank the witnesses for the assistance given to them.
11. While the subject matter of the enquiry with which the Committee has been entrusted is mainly concerned with the selection of the staff and the internal arrange- ments of the Crown Agents' Office, the Committee decided that with a view to arriving at a just conclusion on the questions laid before them it was desirable to receive a certain amount of evidence as to (1) the nature of the work which the Office performs, (2) the system of organisation adopted in order to carry out that work, and (3) how far, speaking generally, that work is satisfactorily performed.
12. In taking such evidence it was almost inevitable that several of the witnesses should travel wide of the actual terms of reference, and, for this reason, a certain amount of the evidence may appear to be outside the proper subject of the enquiry. On the whole it is not to be regretted if this was 80. The general effect of such evidence has been to show that while there is in the Colouies in many quarters a certain simmering of discontent with the methods of the Crown Agents, it is due rather to a want of touch between them and the Colonial Governments, to some want of elasticity on the part of officials claiming to occupy a quasi-independent position, or to personal considerations, but not to a failure in the work of the Office, which appears to be on the whole well done and to be clear from all suspicion of corruption.
13. Some discontent is, no doubt, inseparable from the proper discharge of the functions which the Office performs, and possibly the most fruitful cause of it is the existence of the rule laid down in the Colonial Regulations that articles, the product or manufacture of this country or of Europe, which are required by the Government of a Crown Colony, should be obtained through the Crown Agents' Office. This rule is to the general advantage of the Crown Colonies; but the Committee recommend that wherever in any Colony firms exist able to produce the articles required or to carry out any needed works, and the Colony feels able to arrange for their adequate inspection, such firms should be given opportunities of tendering ou the same conditions as home firms.
•
REPORT.
PART II.
GENERAL.
POSITION, FUNCTIONS, AND ORGANISATION OF CROWN AGENTS' OFFICE.
▼
An account of it was
14. The origin and the development of the Office from small beginnings into a very important institution form a subject of some interest. given in a memorandum by Sir P. Julyan, dated September, 1878, which, in 1881, was laid before Parliament with other papers explanatory of the functions of the Crown Agents (as C. 3075]. A short sketch of the subject is, however, indispensable.
15. The Office of "The Joint Agents General for Crown Colonies,” as the Crown Agents were first called, was established in 1833. Previous to that date the Governor or Legislature of each Colony appointed its own Agent in London, who usually- For instance, a House of carried on his Agency duties in conjunction with other work. Commons Return dated May, 1822 (No. 377, 1822), of "the names of the Agents for the new colonies of Ceylon, Mauritius, the Cape of Good Hope, Malta, &c.," shows that the Agent for Ceylon was also First Commissioner of Woods, Forests, and Land Revenue: the Agent for the Cape was also Secretary to the Board of Commissioners for the affairs of India; the Agent for Malta held no other office; while the Agent for Mauritius was a clerk in the Colonial Department. The Agents for the Colonies not possessing representative Government were usually members of the staff of the Colonial Department, and the origin of the Crown Agents' Office was the amalgamation of the separate Agencies of these Colonies, over which His Majesty's Government had full control, into one joint Agency, at the head of which were placed two of the former Colonial Agents, Messrs. Baillie and Barnard, both of whom had been clerks in the Colonial Department. The West Indian Islands possessing representative institutions, for some time after 1833, continued to have separate Agencies.
16. A Return to the House of Commons, dated August, 1845 (No. 623, 1845) shows this system in existence; side by side with the two joint Agents General for the Crown Colonies are six other Agents-i.., one each for Jamaica. Barbados, Antigua, Tobago, and Grenada, and a gentleman who held the Agencies of the six colonies:- St. Vincent, Dominica, St. Christopher, Nevis, the Virgin Islands, and Anguilla.
17. The working of the new joint agency does not appear to have been satis- factory to the Governments served, and in 1858 the Secretary of State for the Colonies appointed Sir P. Julyan, an experienced officer of the Commissariat, to be Senior Crown Agent, and new methods were introduced. After a few years, during which the business of the Office was more than doubled, Mr. Barnard died, and was succeeded as Junior Crown Agent by Mr. Sargeaunt, of the Colonial Office; and in 1863 the main features of the Crown Agents' Office were settled on their present basis, its subsequent history being chiefly one of steady development in the size of the Office and the magnitude of its operations.
The
18. The Crown Agents' Office acts for all the Colonies, 24* in number, not possessing responsible Government, for the 11* British Protectorates, and for Zanzibar. It is the general agency in this country for these Governments; it purchases and sends out the materials and goods of all kinds which are required by the Colonial Governments from the United Kingdom or Europe, it issues their public loans, keeps the registers of their stock, pays the interest, and invests the sinking funds. Office forms a kind of clearing house for the adjustment of accounts between the various administrations served, and it transacts all kinds of miscellaneous financial business, including the payment of salaries to Colonial Government officials on leave (and, in the case of West and East African administrations, the salaries of many of the European officers, whether on leave or not), and the payment of pensions where the recipients live in the United Kingdom or Europe. It acts as the channel of communi- cation between Colonial Governments and their Consulting Engineers in this country.
For the purpose of this computation, certain states and islands are grouped together-see Colonial Office List for 1908, p. xvi.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O.885
19 PUBLIC RECORD_OFFICE, LONDON
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