619

A.—s

all. Finally, any proposals we make for bringing this office into closer touch with ourselves are made in the common interest, not for merely selfish ends, but in the hope and belief, that it is possible to enable this vast Empire, dissevered by great distances, with its scattered populations absorbed in their own immediate interests and pursuits, to see all its members brought into line for close co-operation with each other; this will be one means of accomplishing that great and most admirable end. CHAIRMAN : I do not propose to follow Mr. Deakin through his very interesting statement, which he has kindly put more as an invitation to me to consider than anything else. . There are one or two remarks I would like to make to clear up, as far as 1 can, any misunderstanding of my position. In the first place I am not quite sure I entirely follow yet the system of appointments which Mr. Deakin described as obtaining in Australia. But, of course, as far as this office is concerned, it is not a separate organisation all by itself; it is a part of the general Civil Service of the country, a civil service of which we are extremely proud. It is recruited from the Civil Service; the Civil Service itself being a competition open to men of high ability, and among them, if I may say so, open to men from the Colonies too, if they choose to come forward. 1 should suppose that Rhodes' scholars might possibly come forward in the future, and increase the number of Colonials we may have in the Civil Service. That being the method in which this office is recruited and staffed, 1 fancy that it would be, perhaps, a little difficult to arrange exchanges on equal footings. I only think it might be so. At any rate, you must remember that this office, when you come to it apart from the Civil Service, is one with a very intricate organisation. We have, as Mr. Deakin has said, colonies in all parts of the world, and in all stages of development, and we have, therefore, to arrange a very complicated division of duties within the office. Hitherto the main scheme of the office was geographical. In the obligation which I undertook at the beginning of these sittings 1 practically accepted the position that, in future, at any rate, as far as the responsible governing Colonies are concerned, we depart from the geographical division and take the responsibly governed Colonies under one branch. That, I venture to think, may make even a fresh difficulty in the question of delegation as between offices and different parts of the world. It seems to me impossible for me to hold out any very large expectation in that respect. We have, I believe, already on occasions found opportunities of sending gentlemen to the Colonies for the occasional services alluded to. That may occur again. But any large delegation, unless it was possible to arrange regular exchanges—and even perhaps in that case —must mean some increase in staff, which I am not at all sure it would be possible for me to contemplate, and certainly I could not contemplate it without consulting those in charge of the finances. I should like also to point out with regard to services in the responsibly governed Colonies that, without in any way demurring to the view which you expressed of the value of knowledge of localities and the conditions of the people and so on, at the same time as far as this office is concerned we deal in no way with the local administration. That is your own affair; you are autonomous in every respect, and it is the last thing you would wish us to interfere with. Therefore, the business which actually comes here from you depends more upon principles than upon local characteristics. lam not quite sure, I admit, that it is absolutely necessary for the performance of these duties that the men who are in charge of them should journey over the world —because they would have to journey over the world—as it is no use in a secretariat of this kind, their taking one colony only; they must exchange from one colony to another in order to qualify themselves in all. Indeed, I rather think that if you wish to push that principle to an effective

Fifteenth Day. 14 May 1907.

Interchange of Permanent Staff. (Mr. Deakin.)