187330-1932-System-of-recruitment-for-the-Cadet-Service-of-Malaya-and-Hong-Kong — Page 2

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THE HONG KONG GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, MARCH 18, 1932.

Ceylon, Malaya and Hong Kong should be linked to that of the Home and, especially, the Indian Civil Services with which they had most in common. As a natural corollary to the rapid development of the Colonial Empire as a whole in recent years, corresponding changes and developments have taken place in the importance, character, and require- ments of the general Colonial Service. In consequence the Services of the Eastern Colonies have now to be considered in relation to that general Service, and their affinity with it, rather than with the Indian and Home Services, is daily becoming closer.

6. Whatever may have been the case in the past, the qualifications demanded in candidates for administrative posts in the Colonial Service do not now differ in any essential feature in whatever part of the Colonial Empire they may be required to serve. In recruiting men of the same type for the same kind of work and in the same market, it is clear that the best interests of all the Administrations concerned lie in presenting a single united appeal to the type of candidates they wish to attract. The prestige of a Colonial Service, entered by one uniform channel and presenting opportunities world wide in their scope, must eventually be far greater than that of a number of relatively small Services with no co-ordinated method of recruitment; and the Colonial Empire as a whole has become of such importance, that no step which will enhance the prestige and efficiency of the Service which administers it can safely be neglected.

7. There were therefore the strongest grounds for adopting a single channel of appointment to posts of the same type in the Colonial Empire. It remained to consider what this channel should be, and at what stage the change should be introduced. I found that the overwhelning weight of experience and argument was in favour of the selection system. For various reasons, which I need not elaborate here, the adoption of the examination system would have been impracticable for the Colonial Service as a whole, however satisfactory it may have been in meeting the relatively small requirements of the Cadet Services. Moreover, the Committee of the Colonial Office Conference of 1930, which examined the question of the unification of the Colonial Service, explicitly deprecated the extension of the examination system beyond the areas in which it was then in force. On the other hand, the testimony of the Warren Fisher Committee to the success of the selection system and the fact that, as a result of that Committee's report, the selection system has been placed on a settled and permanent basis---and has been protected against suspicion on the score of partiality or unfairness, if any such suspicion there were, by the institution of the Colonial Service Appointments Board-led almost inevitably to the conclusion that, if a single method of entry were adopted, that method should be the selection system.

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8. While the obvious advantage of this system lies in its peculiar adaptability for securing men endowed with those necessary qualities of character and temperament which are not readily amenable to the test of a written examination, it should not supposed that the introduction of the system need involve any departure from the high standards of intellectual ability and academic distinction which are admittedly character- istic of the services recruited in past years by the competitive examination. Under the selection system a judicious scrutiny of the academic records and attainments of the candidate enables a close assessment to be made of his intellectual qualifications; and the educational records of recent applicants show that the Services already recruited by the selection system are now attracting young men of real ability who, from this point of view apart from any other, are fully able to stand comparison with those obtainable through the examination. With the added prestige which the Colonial Service will gain from presenting a single appeal to candidates. I am confident that there is every expecta- tion that the standard already reached will be maintained and even raised.

9. On the other hand, the pressure of financial considerations tends nowadays greatly to enhance the attractiveness of any profession or service which offers a career as soon as possible after the conclusion of a University course and which does not impose any additional hazard such as a severe ad hoc examination, involving delay and, in some cases, additional expense. In this respect there is a marked difference between post- war and pre-war conditions. In view of this and of the remarkable increase in the prestige and popularity of the main Colonial Service, which does not impose any academic test apart from those provided by the ordinary University curriculum, there are strong grounds for supposing that, were the Eastern Colonies to retain the examination, they would, as time went on, find their field of choice seriously restricted as compared with that at the disposal of the rest of the Service.

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