CO129-547-10 Memorandum on revision of salaries 1-1-1934 - 31-12-1936 — Page 12

below the minimum necessary to secure the best material

available. The corollary of financial stringency is not

that standards of quality should be reduced, but that

the structure of the Government services should be

overhauled so as to secure the best possible return for

the money expended. Every effort should be made to

develop the employment of the inhabitants of the

territory concerned in duties up to the limit of their

capacity. In the Administrative as well as in the

professional and technical services, expensive and

highly qualified officers from outside should not be

employed to do work for which local recruitment can

provide the necessary personnel. The possibility of

delegating to locally-recruited staff any duties on

which Administrative officers are at present employed

should be carefully and continuously studied, with the

object of effecting reductions of expenditure rather

by a progressive decrease in the numbers of personnel

recruited from overseas than by cheapening the quality

of that personnel. Such a policy is consistent with,

and indeed is an inevitable corollary of, the political

progress of the Dependencies. But it should be carefully

planned and regulated so as to take effect with the least

possible disturbance of the even flow of recruitment; for

it is a steady and consistent demand, rather than mere

numbers, which is of primary importance in maintaining

the prestige of the Colonial Service as a career, and

encouraging a sufficient supply of young men of the best

type to prepare themselves with a view to entering it.

January, 1933.

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