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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O. 885

8.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

CIRCULAR.

CONFIDENTIAL.

SIR,

Downing Street,

August 25th, 1903. On the first of June, 1901, I addressed a circular despatch to the Governors of Crown Colonies and the High Commissioners-of Protectorates in which I asked them whether they were satisfied with the manner in which the Crown Agents for the Colonies transact the commercial business entrusted to them. I invited them to give particulars of any cases in which there was reason to believe that the Crown Agents had in the preceding three years not sufficiently safeguarded the interests of the Colonies or Protectorates, and I stated that on the receipt of the replies I should be able to judge whether any alterations could usefully be introduced into the system under which the Crown Agents conduct this part of their business.

2. The replies which have been received have been subjected to careful examination, and have been printed in the enclosed volume with the observations of the Crown Agents upon them. These papers must all be treated as strictly confidential, for it is obviously undesirable that the details which the Crown Agents give with regard to the working of their business, and the specific references which they make to particular firms, should be communicated to the public.

3. I propose to review very briefly the position of the Crown Agents and certain difficulties which inevitably attach to it; and then, after dealing with the chief points raised in the correspondence, to state the conclusions at which I have arrived upon the question whether the system under which stores are purchased through the Crown Agents is satisfactory or might in some respects be improved.

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4. A sketch of the origin and functions of the Crown Agents' department is contained in a memorandum by Sir Penrose Julyan, who was at the time senior Crown Agent, written in September, 1878, and printed in a Parliamentary Paper entitled Papers Explanatory of the Functions of the Crown Agents for the Colonies"-C. 3075, August, 1881. To this memorandum I 'would refer you, should you wish for information as to how the office has grown up. But in the quarter of a century which has elapsed since the date of the memorandum, the work and responsibilities of the office have very largely increased, and I have to point out that the charges mentioned in the Parliamentary Paper as those which the Crown Agents are authorised to make for work done by their De- partment have been modified by Lord Granville's circular despatch of 12th May, 1886, and Lord Ripon's circular despatch of 19th September, 1893.

5. The Crown Agents are the Agents of the Colonial Governments, but they are appointed by the Secretary of State, who fixes their salaries, the maximum expenditure in respect to the number and salaries of their staff, and also the charges which they may make for the business transacted by their department. They are thus, in a sense, serving two masters. I say in a sense, because, inasmuch as the Governments of the Crown Colonies are subject to the control of the Secretary of State, the agents for the Crown Colonies in taking instructions from both the Colonial Governments and the Secretary of State are not really, or ought not to be, acting under divided authority. Still there can be no doubt, that in practice, the fact that the Crown Agents, while agents for the Colonial Governments, are also directly subordinate to the Secretary of State, places them as they observe in the 6th paragraph of their letter of the 7th of April, 1902, "at times in an invidious and difficult position," and has led the Colonial Governments to feel from time to time that their authority and control over the Crown Agents was nominal as compared with that of the Secretary of State.

•

Miscellaneous,

No. 142.

No. 142.

p. 49,

6. This feeling is expressed in Sir F. Swettenham's despatch of 28th November, Misoel- 1901. Writing to use his own expression as a friendly critic, he says:"It is felt laneous, that the Crown Agents occupy a position which is not exactly that of an Agent of the Colony, but rather of an independent authority prepared to execute the orders of the Colonial Government with considerable limitations.

The Colonial Government feels that the word Agent is rather a misnomer, and that complaint is useless, because, however great the dissatisfaction, the Agents cannot be changed..

I would suggest

"The Officer Administering

the Government of

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