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27 July 1908.

CROWN AGENTS' ENQUIRY COMMITTEE !

Mr. R. L. ANTHOBUS, C.B.

3906. Could you give us any definite reason for your opinion (-1 do not quite see why the Colony should expect that. They must run the risk of mistakes being made occasionally, and i think if you once had it understood that if any mistake was made there was to be a claim on this fund, we should be perpetually being called upon to decide whether a claim was to be paid or not. I think, even if it is right, it would be a very inconvenient arrangement.

3907. Practically you would regard the Jamaica case as an undesirable precedent ?-A very undesirable precedent. 1 never agreed with that. I do not think there are many cases. I was trying before I came in to think of a case, and the only case of a well founded complaint that 1 have had to deal with was one of some wood that was sent out to Southern Nigeria, which no doubt you will remember very well. That is a case in which there were mistakes made and the inspecting officers were fined, but I do not think there would have been any ground for calling on the Crown Agents to pay for other wood.

3908. As a matter of fact, what occurred in that case was that the wood was sappy and with knots in it ?--Yes.

3909. And it was sold by auction, but who made good the deficit I do not know?-I do not believe any- body ever did. I think the Colony suffered there.

3919. (Mr. Gibson.) Are you aware that there is a poundage payment from the Inland Revenue for deducting income tax which is distributed over the members of the Crown Agents' staff?—Yes.

3911. You would not think that would be a proper fund to make good losses of this sort -1 have not thought of that.

3912. Are you aware that such a payment has been made out of that fund?—No.

3913. As to this particular fund, do you consider it ought to be brought to the credit of the office fund like all other commissions for work done, instead of being treated as a private fund and not shown in their accounts at all?-I do not know enough about it; I should be inclined to say that whatever is done in the Imperial service should be done there. It is allowed, I think.

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3914. (Sir Albert Spicer.) I take it from your evidence as a whole that you are in favour of the régime as at present? Yes. I should like to say with regard to that, that of course to a certain extent I am responsible for the régime as it is at present. If it had not been working satisfactorily it would have been my duty to call attention to the fact that it was not working satisfactorily; but I think we have made various improvements of late years in our relations with the Crown Agents--I mean, in the relations bo- tween the Colonial Office and the Grown Agents,

3915. I gather that the complaints that have been received from different quarters have not impressed you with sufficient seriousness to justify making any changes?-No; the complaints have been, when you have analysed them, very often that the Crown Agents were bound by instructions given to them by the Sec- retary of State, and therefore did not do what they were expected to do.

3916. Do you think this sense of independence, or quasi-independence, that has arisen in the minds of some of the Crown Agents has led to some of the difficulties that have arisen?-I think that some of the attacks upon the Crown Agents have been due to the Crown Agents asserting their independence in the past, and being rather inclined to lecture the Colonies

instead of carrying out their orders; but that is quite in the past that is one of the improvements that have been effected lately, and there is nothing of that kind now.

3917. Would you care to see the Crown Agents show a little more elasticity with regard to the ex- pressed wishes of the Crown Colonies-I think they do try to do so now; fifteen or twenty years ago it was rather their attitude to say, "No, we know very much better what is good for the Colony, and we will order this thing, and not what the Colony asks for," Nowadays I do not think they do that.

3918. (Mr. Gibson.) You would agree, probably, that the position of the Crown Agents, as regards popularity, is far better now than it was a few years ago; the improvements made by Mr. Chamberlain in allowing them to order direct, and in giving the Colonies increased powers to nominate the firms from which their orders could be, obtained, and so on, have really removed a great deal of the dissatisfaction which existed before?-I hope so. Of course, there will always be a certain amount of grumbling, and people grumble now; but, as far as. I can see, there is not su much ground for grumbling as there was ten or twenty years ago.

3919. Have you seen the return which was put in by one of the Crown Agents the other day, which tended to show that the complaints during the last two or three years as to the ordering of general stores were absolutely trivial and insignificant?—I have not ween the return; but I suppose any serious complaint comes to the Colonial Office, and we have not had many serious complaints.

3920. (Chairman.) You know the terms of our re- ference. Is there anything else you would wish to tell the Committee which you think would help them in the matter?-I do not think so; I think the ques tions that were given to me covered all the points that I would wish to say anything about. I should like to put in a copy of a despatch received from Sir Hamilton Goold-Adams, the Governor of the Orange River Colony, because he was one of the few Gover- nors who made serious complaints of the way in which the Crown Agents did their store business, when Mr. Chamberlain sent the circular out seme years ago. You have had Sir Harry Wilson before you here, and I believe he said that the Orange River Colony was pleased with the way in which the Crown Agents had done their work. Here is the despatch from Sir Hamilton Goold-Adams, in which he ex- presses great satisfaction, and perhaps I had better read it?

3921. Yes." Governor's

office. Bloemfontein,

O.R.C., 22nd June, 1908.-Orange River Colony, No. 81.-My Lord, In my despatch No. 80, of to-day's date, I have notified to your Lordship the appoint- ment of Mr. Richard Ernest Brounger as Agent. General for the Orange River Colony from 1st July next, after which date the duties as agents in London for this Colony, now performed by the Crown Agents, will be no longer needed.-2. My Ministers desire me to take this opportunity of asking your lordship to convey to the Crown Agents the thanks of this Government, for the work done by them in the repre- sentation of the Orange River Colony, both during Crown Colony Government and also since the present Government assumed office, and their appreciation of the valuable services which the Crown Agents have rendered. I have the honour to be, my lord, your most obedient humble servant (Signed) Hamilton Goold Adams, Governor."

The witness withdrew.

Adjourned to Friday next at 10.30 o'clock.

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE.

SIXTEENTH DAY.

Friday, 31st July, 1908.

At the Colonial Office, Downing Street.

PRESENT:

COLONEL J. E. B. SEELY, D.S.O., M.P. (Chairman).

The Rt. Hon. Sir F. MOWATT, G. C.B., 1.8.U.

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

H. J. Giusos, Esq., C.B.

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

Sir ALBERT SPICER, Bart., M.P. S. M. LEATHES, Esq.

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

A. J. HARDING, (Secretary).

Sir ERNEST BLAKE recalled and further examined.

3922, (Chairman.) The Committee are very glad to have the opportunity of hearing you again. This is the last meeting of the Committee, and with regard to your evidence to-day no doubt you have considered what you are going to say, With a view to saving you trouble I should say it would be hardly worth while to go into the financial transactions of the Crown Agents; on that we have had but little evid- ence and what we have had has not raised any ques- tion calling the conduct of the Crown Agents in question in any way. With regard to other matters there has been very little if anything in the nature of what you would call a charge against the Crown Agents, so that I think there it would be hardly necessary to go into individual cases at any length as we have had practically no evidence calling concreto cases in question, with one or two exceptions. I need hardly say, however, that we should be very glad to hear all you can tell us. The important points are the general attitude of the office and the particular matter we are now discussing, the possible advisability of re-arranging the scale of pay of the staff, and the method of recruiting the same-Do you wish me to say anything before you begin to ask me questions?

3923. Would you like to begin first with a state- ment, or would you rather that I asked a few questions first I think I had better say a few words first. The great bulk of this evidence did not reach me until one o'clock yesterday.

3024. That is the later part?-The great bulk of it, more than half. I was actually engaged in the City at a liquidation meeting and, of course, it means that I have had very hard work to rush through it, and, therefore, I cannot pretend to do anything more than speak generally, In running through the evidence there were three points that struck me as affecting me personally. The first was that it appeared to me that rather an unfair and forced construction had been put upon what I had said with regard to the tenure of the Crown Agents; secondly, as to their independence; and, thirdly, as to the brain power of the office. I think a very forced construction has been placed upon what I certainly intended to say. Shall I take the first point first?

3925. Yes, please. When I spoke of the Crown Agents holding office during good behaviour I did not intend to speak in the sense of the legal term. What I intended to convey was that I did not think any Secre- tary of State could get rid of a Crown Agent merely because he might be politically obnoxious to him, or for such reasons. That was all I intended to imply- that so long as a Crown Agent did his duty he prac tically was irremovable, except, of course, if he did anything wrong, or if he became inefficient, or any thing of the kind; under either of those circumstances, of course, he could be got rid of. That was the sense in which I used the words "good behaviour."

3926. (Sir Francis Moiratt,) Might I ask if that opinion included the question of age?-I think that if the Secretary of State expressed any wish that a Crown Agent should go, the Crown Agent would be too proud to raise any difficulty about it; he would say: "If you do not appreciate my services I cor- tainly shall not stay." That is my personal view of the matter.

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3927. (Chairman.) What is your next point? The second point was about the independence of the Crown Agents, and there again I think the Committee have clearly misunderstood me. All I meant to imply is that, of course, if the Secretary of State gives us an order to do a particular thing we do not question it; that is undoubted; but if the Secretary of State dele- gates to us a duty without any instruction, then I say we have absolute independence.

That is my position. Have I explained myself to you? Do you appreciate the difference?

3928. I quite appreciate the point you make. Now as to your third point?-Taking the third point as to the brain power, I do not wish to imply in the least that we do not want intelligence in our office; we want the highest intelligence we can get; but I am afraid I must say that the men at the top of the offion must possess something more than intelligence.

3929. I say at once that I hope your feelings were not hurt? Not at all; unly I think some of the questions have been rather unfair, as implying that I wished to depreciate our staff. I do not wish to depreciate it:

3930. I understand that, but it is a quite important concrete point you raise, and it is always useful to raise a concrete point. We understood your view to be that it was only the people at the very top, the Crown Agents, who required the very exceptional qualities; whereas, taking the rest of the office, of course, the better the quality of their brain power the better. On that point we should like to hear you further, if it is agreable to you. The position is that if you were to get too clever a set of men into the office they would become desperately discontented, and they would aspire to become Crown Agents.

3031. Perhaps you will tell us why 7-May I say that the great success of the Crown Agency in my opinion is due to always bringing in new blood.

3032. At the top-At the top. Every Crown Agent hitherto has been a picked man.

3933. (Mr. Gibson.) Does not that rather point to an unsatisfactory method of recruitment

in

the past for your office, that there should be no single man in it who is fit to rise to the highest place?-That is another point; the Committee have not grasped the fact that the office has grown up from nothing, and of late years it has grown very rapidly and we have not had time to bring it into the state of organisation that we should like. You must remember that it was a very small office to begin with; it grew up haphazard, and of recent years we have had no time to turn round, we have had work put upon us and have simply had to do it, and we have Ital to get men wherever we could.

3934. (Sir Ralph Moor.) Would you consider that the training in the office then does not fit a man to take charge of it or to become a Crown Agent?--It does not. For instance, I should deprecate, if I had anything to do with it, bringing in another Royal Engineer officer to work in the office. I think that

if it went on too long that man would not be fit to be a Crown Agent, because he gets to look at questions