§ MR. NIELD (Middlesex, Ealing)To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, whether, having regard to the political and commercial developments of the greater Colonies, which have outgrown limitations regarded as commensurate when constituted, as well as to the importance of extending appropriate recognition to men who are performing valuable and important services at the outposts of the Empire, whether in commerce or in the services, subjects may be permitted to make their appeals for the recognition through the Premiers of provincial Parliaments, to avoid the present circumlocution and the delay not infrequently occasioned, which now not infrequently amounts to injustice.
(Answered by Colonel Seely.) The hon. Member will probably agree with me in thinking that recognition of services rendered to His Majesty the King in any part of His Majesty's dominions should rather be spontaneously recommended by others than solicited by those who have rendered the services. In the self-governing dominions the Premiers make their views on such subjects known 311 to the Governors, who are the King's representatives, and who forward them with an expression of their own opinions, and with their own recommendations, to the Secretary of State. It would, in the opinion of the present Secretary of State, be most undesirable to make a change in this practice, and it is not admitted that it has been the cause of unreasonable delay.