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prepare intelligence reports which include information of political value arrangements should be made to pool and co-ordinate that with similar information obtained from other sources). These two streams, the "police" and the "political" should no doubt serve as a valuable cross check the one on the other. The Police Adviser would, in the ordinary course of his duties, advise Commissioners of Police during his visits on the efficiency of the police intelligence machinery; but I hope that he would also be shown the arrangements in force for the obtaining of political intelligence from other sources, and given the opportunity to make suggestions for co-ordination of the two.
It is of course impossible to lay down in general terms a framework for the organisation of these services suitable to all Colonies. Experience has shown, however, that, whatever the structure of the particular intelligence organisation, it is essential that the central co-ordination of reports from the various sources shall be in the hands of a political officer of high calibre (not necessarily high rank), who will be in a position to devote the necessary time to this work. Only such an officer, whose business it is to see all reports from all sources, can adequately build up from small and superficially unrelated scraps of information a general picture of conditions as a whole, on the basis of which the importance of individual events and trends can be properly assessed and the central government suitably advised. In some cases this is no doubt the existing arrangement, but where it is not, I hope that it will be found possible in the very near future to assign a suitable officer to this task which, as you will I feel sure agree, must now be regarded as of the first importance.
In any case, I should be grateful if you could let me have a brief review of the organisation for dealing with
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