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CROWN AGENTS' ENQUIRY COMMITTEE:

ENQUIRY

TENTH DAY,

Monday, 13th July, 1908.

At the Colonial Office, Downing Street.

PRESLST:

COLONEL J. E. P. SEELY, D.8.0., M.P. (Chairman).

The Rt. Hon. Sir F. MowaTT, G.C.B., LS.O.

Sir RALPH Moon, K.C.M.G.

H. J. Grusos, Esq., C.B.

R. BAILEY, Esq., "M.V.O., 1.8.0.

Sir ALDERT Seicen, Bart., M.P. S. M. Levines, Esq.

C. A. HARRIS, Esq., C.B., C.M.G.

A. J. HARDING (Secretary),

3

Mr. W. H. MERCER, C.M.G., called and examined.

1926 (Chairman.) We have your memorandum, and the most convenient way for yourself and the Com- mitter will be to go through it. I should say before we begin that we have had a great deal of evidence on these points from a number of witnesses, and I dare. say you have seen some of the evidence?--I have seen the evidence given by Sir Ernest Blake and Major Camer.n.

1987. Where you agree with them in every detail of course it is not worth while to go over it again. but, where you differ from the constitutional view ex- pressed, it is most important that you should. I add that. because the Secretary of State is particularly anxious that we should conclude our evidence before Parlament 1195, aml, us you know, we have got a good many witnesses to call. I hope, therefore, we hall be able to conclude your evidence today.-I might mention that I male à further short memoran- dum, but I am not quite sure whether it has reached you yet it

statement of complaints made against the Crown Agents. I thought perhaps it might be of servic to the Committee that they should have an idea of what the actual complaints made against us have been; that is to say, the complaints by the Colonial Governments. I have got a list here of the complaints made against my own Department. the General Stores, during the last 4 years, which seems to be a fairly reasonable period, and I have the papers here now so that they can be inspected by the Committee.

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1988. You might tell us, but not in any detail, what complaints there were and what substance there was in any of thern-As regards the merits of the com- plaints I am afraid it is a question of detail. What I hoped was that the Committee might be able to find time to go into the merits of these complaints. They are substantially all the complaints that brve ben made against one of our larger departments, and if you want to have a really close iden, an idea funded upon your own observation, I think it would be a good way of getting at it.

1989. Of course it depends upon how many there would be and we might go into at least one on its merits 1 should think it would take about an hour.

1990. We will not begin upon that at any rate. First of all I will ask you a question which you de not mention in your pooris. In your view are the Crown Agents themselves a Board in the sense that the Board of Admiralty or the Board of Inland Revenne is a Board, or are they three gentlemen of whom one is the head and the other two subordinates? -It is the latter case. We are not a Board in any sense, We are three officials who have been appointed at different times by the Secretary of State and our rule in the mar is simply that of an ordinary Civil Service adlie - the senior "official prevails if there is any difference of opinion.

1901. Then it is an ordinary Civil Service oflice in n Civil Service oflice, but a your opinion?--Not Government office; that is to say, it is not part of the machinery of the Government of the United King- dem, but it is part of the machinery of the Govern- ment of the Crown Colonies, and in that sense it is a Government office. It was created for Government work. and it is entirely devoted to Government work, at all the powers which are exercised in it are derived from the Crown. I am quite clear in my own mind that it ought to be termed a Government office.

1902. And you say that all from the top to the bottom hold at pleasure?—Yes, I have no doubt about that.

1998. As to the relations of the Crown Agents inter 3. I see you here say that in a case of difference of opinion that of the senior prevails, and your view is that it is not a Board at all-That is so,

1994. As to the relations of the Crown Agents with their staff, you say that the Crown Agents appoint the staff, but so under the power delegated by the Croovin ?--Yes.

1613, (Sir Francis Mowalf.) When you say you are not a Board, do you hold that the duties of each Crown Agent are allotted to him by the Secretary of State, or that the duties are allotted by agreement between the three men?-When a Crown Agent is appointed by the Secretary of State the Secretary of State does not specify what particular work he is to do, and therefore in that

sense he is

more

or less responsible for the work of his col- leagues, but in practice, a practice which has been recognised by the Secretary of State over since. the creation of the office, the office is divided into various departments, and ench Crown Agent has a nore or less recognised field of work. I think I can only say that it is very much like the Colonial Office itself. You have your Under Secretary here and your Assistant Under-Secretaries. They are not a Board in any senses, and yet, of course, they have to work to- gether to a considerable extent. If there is any differ- ence of opinion, all that can be said in this case is that you go to the Secretary of State; so should we in a serious matter. but if it is not a matter of great prinsiple then we should defer to the opinion of the Senior Crown Agent.

1996 (Chairman.) You say that the Crown Agents appoint the staff, but do so under powers delegated by the Crown; and that the office is in no sense a private one, and that the staff are not their private employees, but servants of the Colonial Governments. What have you to say upon that? The Secretary of State has from the very beginning left all the office arrangements in the hands of the Crown Agents; we take our pre- mises, we equip them, we nominate and appoint the staff. but everything we do is under the authority

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE.

Mr. W. 1. Mercer, C.M.G.

which we get from the Crown, and the Crown only. Clearly we do not do it on our own authority; we do it because this work is delegated to us by the Secre tary of State; but my own opinion is that it certainly does not follow that the office is a private concern. It is a public Government office in every sense. In this country, for instance, there is one office in particular which is not far from here, and thy head of that office has the right, and exercises it, of nominating his own staff; lt it does not follow that the Foreign Office is a private office. The mere fact who makes the appoint- ment is immaterial: what we have to look at is the authority under which he makes it. We make these appontinents. but we make them under the authority delegated to us by the Secretary of State. We have no other power whatever except what he gives us.

1997. In your view they are servants of the Colonial Governments? All of them.

1998. Each member of the stuff!-Every one.

1999. (Sir Francis Mowatt.) of the Colonial Govern- ments or of the Colonial Office?At the present moment, so far as we have got. I should say simply the Crown; to carry it further, I should certainly say they are officials of the Crown Colonies who are interested. 2000. (Chais man.) I do not see in your statement anything further on the subject of the appointment of the staff an you going to take that later on?-1 think I have referred later on to the noile in which we do appoint them.

2001. We will deal with that under the organisation of the office. With regard to the relations of tho Crown Agents with the Crown Colonies, you say the Crown Agents are the London agents of the Colonies interested, and are on the same footing constitution- They aily as other executive officers of the Colonies. take their instructions from the Colonial Governments, and render explanations and accounts to them in all matters connected with such instructions." I am sure the Committee will be interested to hear your view upon that, because we have had evidence to show that Bistructions are not always taken from the Colonial Governments? They are not, but they should be. I speak, of course, entirely from a constitutional point of view. I had some legal training myself, and" per- haps I have a bias in favour of that view, at any rate to begin with. Constitutionally 1 think it is quito elour that we are the London agents of the Crown Odonies. We are appointed, it is true, by the Serre- tary of State, but when the Secretary of State does that he is acting for the Crown Colonies, he does it on their behalf, and the practical reason why he does it is that he alone can do it. There are now 50 of these Governments, and it is quite clear it would be very littent for them either to consider the question of one appointment or to carry it out. The Secretary of State does it on behalf of all, but when appointed we are the agents of the Crown Colonies, and we do the sathe work which they themselves would do the Governor, the Colonial Secretary, and so forth ---if they were in London; as they are not and cannot be, they must have representatives here, and it is the work of the Crown Colonies which we do, and that only.

2002. One witness described it in this way. While filing no fault with the work. he said that the Crown Agents, so far from being servants, were in the posi- tion of being masters?It is very wrong that that should be the case, or that anything should be done to give any of the Crown Colony officials that impres- sin. I quite admit that that impression has got about. Personally I do all I can to correct it. 1 think one reason, if I mighð mention it, is that we are in close touch with this office, and, of course, it is only bumin nature that our principals, as we regard them, should regard that close association with a certain amount of suspicion. It is not directed against us, but against the Colonial Office. They think we have got the ear of the Colonial Office, and that we influence the Colonial Office against them. Of course, we never do anything of the kind. I do not say it never has occurred, but not in my time.

2003. We might at once ask you how is this to bo

I think to a certain extent it can be avonded, and is being avoided. Of course, there are two courses open to the Secretary of State-one is to

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[13 July 1,

wave us to take our directions entirely from the Colonial Government, exercising, of exide, as le must, a general supervision, and the other course is to take over the whole office as practically a part of this office, and to be directly responsible for the work. I think it comes to that.

2004 You say his ultimately responsible?—Yes. 2005. You mean you are directly responsible? --In details, yes; I think the Colonial Governments them- edves like to know that they can say what they like

to us.

2006 Do they?—Not always, and the reason is that they think that if they talked frankly and freely to us we should come aml discuss the matter here,

There

is that feeling about, although I do not say there is

much in it in substance, I do not believe there is myself.

2007. (Sir Ralph Moor.) But'in effect when a Crown

Colony wishes to convey any censure on the work of the Crown Agents it does convey that censure to you through the Secretary of State?--Certainly.

2008. Not diretly, in any case ?—Yes, sometimes ---- generally I should say they would write to us in the first instance at any rate.

2009. But, finally, any case of censure is put before the Secretary of State-Certainly.

2010, And the usual earse in any ensure on the Crown Agents is to send it through the Seewtary of State? Yes, but I was not thinking of these cases af censure, which, after all, as I think I can show. are very rute, I was thinking of cases where the Government want information, and they want it privately if they can get it. before they come to the Secretary of State. If they could appoint their own agents, and did so, that is what they would do; they would writ to these people in the full knowledge that it was a confidential coinmunication.

2011. (Chairman.) In what kind of cases-could you give the hypothetical questions that might arise?In these concessions cases, for instance, they would write to us and ask us for our private views about the per- sonal and financial standing of the parties concernoi. I do not say that there is much of substance in this, hit quite admit there is a feeling which I am glad to say is gradually disappearing that we are too closely associated with the Colonial Office and that they cannot absolutely trust us as their confidential agents. I always tell every officer I meet, and I meet hundreds in the course of any year, that if he likes to write to me as his confidential agent I will respect the relation.

2012. To go back for a moment to the phrase "master," so far as I recollect, that witness did not consider that that was owing to the close touch of the Crown Agents with the Colonial Office; that was not the general impression conveyed by that evidence or some other, but rather that the Crown Agents did not sufficiently fool themselves to be the servants, as I think you put it, of the Colonial Governments to take their instructions from the Colonial Govern ments" is your phrase-but were rather more fu a josition to dietaté to them. You said that shuld not Is and we have asked you how you would amend that * --Of course, I cannot speak for past years, The fact is, our institution has grown up without any written authority or any written particulars, and naturally the actual practice has varied to certain extent with the personality of the Crown Agent for the time being when he is engaged on any particular case. All I can say is that we certainly do not adopt the position or the tone of masters now: we regard ourselves as absolutely the servants of the Colonial Governments, I daresay that some criticisms might be directed against old proceedings. of which personally I know nothing, but in reent yars I make bold to say that nothing of the kind les decurred. If any concrete case has come before you I should be pleased to deal with it.

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2013. This may be the convenient point-again 1 will ask you-in take the question of debarring the Colonial people engaged in business from taking con- tracts, unless it arises somewhere else?—It does not. arise anywhere else.

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