TIT
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
TITLECO.885
7
34
(MB. GRAHAM.)
The main feature of Lord Selborne's scheme is, take it, to provide a training school for governors and other high officials in the Colonies, such as the Indian Civil Service provides for high officials in India,
It is an attractive idea, but there are two im- portant respects in which a Colonial Civil Service would be differentiated from the Indian Civil Service. (1) The latter is paid out of a single exchequer, which for that purpose is under the control of the Secretary of State, while a Colonial Service would be paid partly out of monies voted by a number of petty legislatures, whose voice in such matters is not to be lightly set aside. (2) The Indian Service governs a population of non- European race, and there is no large number of pure Europeans who have made India their home and may reasonably claim a share in the adminis- tration.
It follows that in India there is a sufficient number of minor offices to provide for the early training of the civilian, and that these minor offices are sufficiently well paid to attract young men of education and ability,
Where are we to look in a General Colonial Service for such minor offices?
Not in the West Indies, Mauritius, and Malta, for there the minor offices are monopolised by the Creole and the Maltese.
Not in Africa, where the climate precludes the appointment of young men, and, therefore, of men who have not probably failed to do something
else.
There remains only the Eastern Colonies and Fiji as a training school, and I confess I cannot see any great objection to the selection in future of those Colonial officials who are appointed by the Secretary of State from these Services, or from the Indian or the Home Service. If such were the rule the Secretary of State would have a complete and final answer ready for those applicants who seek the Colonial Service as a last resort. And if it were known that Eastern Cadets would have the-run of the whole Colonial Service, it would probably raise the standard for
Eastern Cadetships. There would be no injustice I quite agree.-E. W. under such a system of bringing back a man who had done well, in the West Indies say, to a post of better value in the service from which he was taken.
}
If an improvement in climatic conditions, either from better sanitation or from the opening up of
a healthy "hinterland," should make it possible
to establish an African Service attractive to young men of education and ability, this service would,
of course, be added to the training schools. The "There should be no hard objection to such a scheme is that it would exclude and fast rules preventing West Indians, Mauritians, &c., from the highest an exceptionally good local posts in their own Colonies; but this would apply to the highest posts, but it man from being promoted immeasurably more strongly to a General Colonial would very seldom happen. Service recruited by open competition.
I regard occasional temporary service in this
-E. W.
35
Office as of great value in enabling the Secretary of State to form a personal opinion of the value of a man's work, and I should be glad to see is system devised whereby a Colonial officer could be temporarily attached to this office on special half- pay leave. I do not regard a frequent interchange between Colonial officers and officers of this depart- ment as practicable without an unwarrantable addition to our staff. It is not that the nature of the work demands especial qualifications. It is the amount of it which demands from at least three- fourths of the present staff experience which is only gained by years in one particular department. We get through the work because each man carries in his mind more or less information on particular subjects, obtained gradually and slowly, and im.' printed on his mind by repeated reference, and correction by those of longer experience. With it, he is in a position to give the Secretary of State a useful opinion, or to furnish, with little trouble, a memorandum or minutes on which an opinion can safely be formed. Without it, there are traps and pit. falls at every turn. An outsider of intelligence can obtain the same information, on certain specific subjects, at the cost of going through volumes of printed matter or reams of manuscript. While doing so his services are of small value, indeed he requires some guidance. By the time he has become familiar with the subject he has taken up, he has to elsewhere. For financial reasons an interchange of officers could only take place between Colonial officers and our better paid seniors, the very ones whose accumulated knowledge is the most valuable. I deprecate, therefore, any system of interchange except for long periods.
go
25th July.
F. G.
་
233
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO