LORD MONK BRETTONMy Lords, I rise to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether His Majesty's Government will consider the appointment of officials of the Colonial Office to serve on the staffs of the Governors of self-governing Colonies. In rising to ask this Question I must frankly confess that I do so less with the object of drawing information from His Majesty's Government than in order to make a suggestion to them on a subject which I believe to be of considerable importance. When His Majesty the King appoints a Governor to one of the self-governing Colonies, the Secretary of State usually selects a gentleman who has 972 had no previous experience of that colony, and rightly, because the incoming Governor lands in the colony unprejudiced as regards Party and able to take a neutral attitude. In the same way the staff which the Governor brings out with him to the colony are new to the colony, and, therefore, for some little time at any rate, after the arrival of a new Governor, the Secretary of State for the Colonies at home receives no reliable information with regard to affairs generally in that colony.
I know it may be contended that the Governor of a colony is the paid servant of that colony, and that he is in a sense the mouthpiece of the Ministry of the day in the colony. I venture to say that such a view overlooks the fact that the Governor of a colony is the representative of His Majesty the King, and that it is his duty to keep His Majesty and His Majesty's Secretary of State informed of what is going on in His Majesty's dominions, and therefore I cannot think that it can be contended that it is not his duty to give information to the Secretary of State. Indeed, my Lords, I do not think anyone who has read the history of the American Rebellion can deny that it is of importance that the Secretary of State should receive accurate information with regard to what is going on in the self-governing Colonies; and if he is not to receive such information, what is the position of His Majesty's Government with regard to the self-governing Colonies? They would be worse informed about a colony like Australia than they would be about a country like Japan. In Japan His Majesty's Government have a Minister and a staff of officials to give them information, but in a self-governing colony, if they cannot rely on the Governor, they have nobody at all. I would appeal to those of your Lordships who have been Governors in self-governing Colonies to confirm me when I say that a Governor can be consistently loyal to his own Government, and at the same time furnish information to the Secretary of State for the Colonies with regard to the general affairs taking place in the colony.
When the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs appoints 973 an ambassador to, we will say, France, that ambassador goes to Paris, and finds there a chancery of experts who have had every opportunity of, and have been, studying affairs going on in that country, and whose business it is to report to him; but a colonial Governor lands in the colony with no such means of information, and I submit that it would be greatly to the interests of the Imperial connection and of the Governor, if, when he landed, he was met by an officer who had served with his predecessor and who would be able to keep him informed of the state of affairs in the colony. I should like to give your Lordships an illustration of what I mean. The Secretary of State for War has lately told us in the Memorandum on the Army Estimates that His Majesty's Government are in negotiation with the Dominion of Canada with regard to the evacuation of Halifax and Esquimault by the Imperial troops. I venture to say that that is not really a military question; it is a civil question of the first magnitude, and it vitally affects the relations between Canada and the United Kingdom. Is it fair to expect a Governor-General who has only recently landed in the colony to be able at once to give full information with regard to so important a matter? I venture to say that if the noble Earl, Lord Grey, had had, when he landed, an official from the Colonial Office who had served under Lord Minto as a member of his staff, he would have been very pleased, and I think that that is sufficiently proved by the fact that the present Governor-General of Canada has taken on a private secretary from the late Governor-General.
But, my Lords, that is only the smaller part of the argument. The real benefit of the proposal which I desire to put before your Lordships would be when the official who had served under the Governor in the colony returned to the Colonial Office. I ask, what means have the Colonial Office of knowing about the self-governing Colonies? I wish to guard myself from appearing in the slightest degree to lay the smallest aspersion on the Colonial Office. I know every member of its staff. I have the highest admiration of their ability; I have the greatest respect for their 974 loyalty to their chief, for their industry, and for their general efficiency; but I ask, what opportunities have the Colonial Office of knowing about the self-governing Colonies? I do not mean to say that they do not know about what I will call the external affairs of those Colonies. They may be able to tell you every point connected with the Treaty Shore; they may know all about the Alaska boundary, or the Pacific cable, or the relations of Fiji and New Zealand; but how can they learn what are the true aspirations and feelings of a great country like Australia? You may say they have the Reports of the Governors. Yes, my Lords, but those Reports are intermittent, because the Governors are constantly changing. The Secretary of State for the Colonies does not know the Governors personally, or in the same way as the noble Marquess and his staff at the Foreign Office are acquainted with the ambassadors, because the Governors are temporary and the ambassadors are permanent; and it must discount from the value of a despatch if the man who reads it does not know the person who writes it, as might very well happen in the case of relations between the Governor of a colony and the persons who have to advise the Secretary of State for the Colonies in Downing Street.
To continue the parallel with the Foreign Office, I should like to point out that members of the Diplomatic Service and Foreign Office clerks very often interchange, and that the Foreign Office is the gainer by the information they receive. In the same way officials in the Colonial Service of the Crown Colonies very often work in the Colonial Office and give the Colonial Office the benefit of their experience, whilst Colonial Office clerks go out to the Crown Colonies. But such a state of things is impossible with regard to the self-governing Colonies, because the staff of the Governor, being temporary, comes to an end with the Governor. I feel that I ought to give an illustration of the real evil which the present system involves, and to do so I am forced to touch on a matter of controversial politics, but I shall do so in as uncontroversial a way as I can. I happened to be in Australia at the time when the Secretary of State for the Colonies 975 introduced his Ordinance for the importation of Chinese labour into the Transvaal. I do not think anyone who is not personally acquainted with Australia can realise the intensity of Australian feeling on the Chinese question. They seem unable to dissociate the Chinese question in any country from their own cherished doctrine of a white Australia, and when one looked in the Press of Australia at that time one was unable to find any adequate declaration at all of what I believe were the views of the Secretary of State for the Colonies. It appeared to me that Australian opinion was guided entirely from one side, and that Australians never heard the other side of the question.
I wish to call your Lordships' attention for a moment to what took place. The legislature of the Commonwealth passed a Resolution in favour of a referendum being taken before the Chinese were admitted into the Transvaal, and it was passed unanimously in the Senate and quasi-unanimously in the House of Representatives. Now, what did the Secretary of State for the Colonies reply? He began by recognising the right of the Legislature of the Australian Commonwealth to express their opinion about this matter, and he alluded to the part played by Australians in the recent war. He then went on to say—
His Majesty's Government regret that for the reasons which have been stated in discussion upon the matter in Parliament during this present session they have been unable to adopt the policy advocated in the Resolution.After that followed about ten lines containing two bare statements—that the condition of things was exceptional, and that the matter was extremely urgent. So far as I know that was the only official information which the Australian people had about this matter on which they felt very strongly, and in my humble opinion the Secretary of State for the Colonies lost a golden opportunity of laying before the people of Australia in a closely-reasoned and well-argued despatch the full grounds and reasons for his policy. Instead of that he referred them to speeches which he had himself made in the Imperial Parliament. My Lords, it is surely too much to expect of Australian statesmen that they should read the English Hansard, 976 and I venture to think the man in the street in Australia never heard any argument at all in favour of the side which the Secretary of State for the Colonies was advocating. My point is this, that if there had been to advise the Secretary of State for the Colonies anybody who realised what the opinion of Australia was, I do not believe this despatch would ever have been issued.One word more, and I have done. Your Lordships are aware—and nobody can be better aware than the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs—of the round-aboutness of negotiations between a self-governing colony and a foreign country. The Government of the colony has to communicate with the Governor; the Governor has to communicate with the Secretary of State for the Colonies; the Secretary of State has to communicate with the Foreign Office; the Foreign Office has to communicate with the British Ambassador abroad; and the British Ambassador has to communicate with the foreign Government. The cumbersomeness of this system has already found its vent in a clamour which has been raised in Canada for what is called the treaty-making power. As the noble Earl, Lord Rosebery, said in a speech about eighteen months ago, the offer of the Government of Canada to take over the treaty-making power is not one which is likely to unite the Empire more closely. That seems to me certainly the case, and the present system of negotiation is not one that can indefinitely last, but while it does it is of great importance that we should do all we can to grease the wheels of that very circuitous means of communication. In that chain of negotiation there is a link which is not in touch with the others on each side of it. I mean that when a Governor goes out new to Government House he and his staff are as little acquainted with Downing Street as they are, on the other side, at first with the Governor, and I submit that it would be better if the Governor had on his staff a man intimately acquainted with the ways of Downing Street.
I am encouraged to put this Question because I observe that not the least able administrator who has been sent out by the Colonial Office has insisted 977 on the adoption of this system. Lord Milner has had on his staff for the last few years a person taken from the Colonial Office, and I am glad to say that the noble Lord who is going out as High Commissioner to South Africa in succession to Lord Milner is following his example. I desire to say that I have not brought this matter forward in any contentious or fussy spirit; I have not brought it forward in order to enjoy the exhilarating sensation of making a speech in your Lordships' House, but because I believe it to be really a matter of considerable importance, much more so than would at first sight meet the eye. I know there are objections to it, but I believe that the advantages far outweigh the objections. It is naturally very awkward for a Government to lose some of its trained officials, but in the consideration of this matter I would ask you to remember that the Colonial Office was made for the Colonies and not the Colonies for the Colonial Office. I beg to ask the Question standing in my name.
§ THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (The Duke of MARLBOROUGH)My Lords, I have listened with great attention to the observations which have fallen from my noble friend opposite. The noble Lord is well qualified to give his views to your Lordships upon colonial administration, for he was for many years private secretary to the late Secretary of State for the Colonies, and was in close touch and made himself thoroughly familiar with the machinery of that great Department. But I confess that, in listening to his speech this afternoon, I could not help feeling that he had strayed away to a considerable extent from the original Question on the Order Paper of your Lordships' House. The noble Lord prefaced his remarks by telling your Lordships that when Governors go to self-governing Colonies they are for the first five or six months very little acquainted with either the history of, or the late political achievements in connection with, the Colonies, and that consequently they are unable to give the Secretary of State at home any very accurate information of what is taking 978 place in the Colonies over which they preside. My noble friend has had experience in the Colonial Office. I can only speak for myself, and certainly during the time I have been at the Colonial Office I do not recollect that we have ever suffered from the lack of information from any Governor of a self-governing colony.
I confess I fail to understand the point of view of the noble Lord. He says that a Governor-General has no means whatever of making himself acquainted with what has taken place in the colony before his arrival, because he has no official from the Colonial Office on his staff who had arrived there before he went out. My noble friend seems to forget altogether that a Governor of a self-governing colony has the whole of the information of his confidential advisers in the shape of the Ministers of the day in the colony. They inform him, and, indeed, it is their absolutely duty to inform him, of all that has taken place, and the function of the Governor-General is to weigh that information and embody it in a despatch for the information of the Secretary of State. Seeing that that machinery exists, I for my part cannot admit that the contention of my noble friend is a very serious one. Because a Governor on his arrival in a colony has not got some official who has been sent out there by the Colonial Office two or three years previously, I do not see how it can be said that he is incapable of sending to the Government at home adequate information concerning the colony over which he presides. My noble friend drew some analogy between the duties of a Colonial Governor and those of an Ambassador. I am not closely acquainted with the functions of an Ambassador, and therefore he must forgive me if I do not follow him into an examination of that particular question. I will, however, deal with one other point which also exercises the mind of my noble friend. He said that in his opinion the views held by the self-governing Colonies upon important political questions which affect the Empire are inadequately represented in this country, or inadequately understood by us.
§ THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGHThe noble Lord stated that the views held by the self-governing Colonies were inadequately represented in this country. He seems to forget entirely that we are well acquainted in the Colonial Office with the views of the self-governing Colonies, and that we have machinery in the shape of despatches from the Governor or Governor-General. In addition, the important newspapers are continually sent home to the Colonial Office, and all those matters which we think exercise the minds of those dwelling in our self-governing Colonies are carefully marked and invariably brought before the notice of the Secretary of State. Not only do we receive information through the colonial Press, but in any question affecting a particular colony there is the ordinary method of transmitting information, the cable and the telegraph, and there is, too, the English Press. My noble friend knows perfectly well that if there is any matter of importance affecting Canada, Australia, or any of the other Colonies, it is immediately cabled over and included in the information in the daily Press here. I would go further and remind my noble friend that if there is a matter which seriously affects the interests of a self-governing colony, a matter on which the colonists themselves feel strongly, they are able to have their views represented every four years at the Colonial Conference over which the Secretary of State for the Colonies presides. So I really do not think my noble friend's contention will, on reflection, be given that importance which he has attached to it.
My noble friend passed from the consideration of the feelings of the self-governing Colonies and gave the House an illustration in support of his argument. During his visit to Australia he was enabled, he said, to hear from the Australians their views upon the question of Chinese labour, and he told us, furthermore, that the Australians had received very little information as to the views and ideas of the Imperial Government upon this most important and difficult problem. I am at a loss to understand how that 980 could possibly be true. There is the medium of the Press and there is the telegraph, and if the Australians were so interested in this problem as my noble friend assures us they were, surely the Press of that country would have taken the first means it could to inform itself of the views and the ideas of the people here at home. My noble friend seems to think that all these difficulties might have been removed if only there had been some representative of the Colonial Office who had arrived in Australia two or three years before this particular problem presented itself both to our notice and to the notice of the people of Australia. I cannot agree with my noble friend. I do not think the advantages of the presence of a permanent official in the different self-governing Colonies would be so great as he imagines.
The noble Lord is perfectly aware that during Mr. Chamberlain's tenure at the Colonial Office he, in some instances, did send what are known as first-class clerks to certain of the Crown Colonies, and some of the more important officials in the Crown Colonies came over to the Colonial Office and worked there with the rest of the officials. This practice, although inconvenient, was on the whole found to work well. We were anxious that the first-class clerks might have an opportunity of learning on the spot political administration, and it was furthermore felt by the Civil Service at homo that it would be useful to have some of the high officials of the Crown Colonies at home in order that they might acquaint themselves with the work of the Colonial Office, and in order that we might test whether they were fit for further promotion. But although this practice held good with regard to first-class clerks it has never been extended to those who occupy the position of second-class clerks.
My noble friend alluded to the fact that Lord Milner had a private secretary who was a second-class clerk in the Colonial Office, and that Lord Selborne was going to follow his example. That is perfectly true, but the reason why those two distinguished administrators have been authorised to take second-class clerks from the Colonial Office is that the political conditions of the Transvaal are of 981 exceptional interest and of vast importance. The administration of the two new colonies is a source of great interest to the young clerks in the Colonial Office, and they gladly avail themselves of the opportunity of going out to the Transvaal to work under such distinguished administrators as Lord Milner and Lord Selborne. But although the Colonial Office have consented to this practice in the case of the Transvaal, they do not view it with any very great favour, and for this reason. We have only got a certain number of second-class clerks at the Colonial Office; we have not got a redundant number; and if we are to supply the Governors of the self-governing Colonies with private secretaries or officials, as the noble Lord suggests, I fear the Colonial Office will be entirely depleted of all its able men. Having weighed the suggestion of my noble friend, the Secretary of State and, indeed, all those who advise him at the Colonial Office, have come to the conclusion that it would be quite impracticable.
§ THE EARL OF ABERDEENMy Lords, I would ask the indulgence of the House while I offer a few observations upon the interesting statement which has just been made by the noble Duke. We all sympathise with the aim of the noble Lord who raised this question, but I am sure the House, and more especially those who have been called upon to occupy the position of Governor in our Colonies, will feel that this matter involves very delicate considerations. There is a sensitiveness in the minds of our colonial fellow-subjects in regard to anything which might seem like, to use a colloquial expression, the Imperial authorities having a finger in the colonial pie, and this feeling of sensitiveness coexists and is consistent with the most complete loyalty to the mother country. I feel convinced that such a proposal as that which has been made by the noble Lord would be regarded with considerable misgiving. The noble Duke has very fully answered the contention of the noble Lord, but I think no portion of his speech will be appreciated in the 982 Colonies more than the sentence in which he indicated that the source from which a Governor should obtain information to send home is through his responsible advisers. That will be looked upon in the Colonies as a very sound and healthy sentiment. I would venture to add that apart from that, a new Governor wishing to be primed as to the ins and outs of the position would in the first place have the fullest confidential information from his predecessor, and, again, at the Colonial Office, before going out, he would receive the fullest information as to the position at the moment in the colony. The noble Duke the Under-Secretary mentioned various sources of information in regard to colonial affairs, and I think he will agree with me that there should be added the Agents-General for the Colonies in this country, who are being increasingly recognised by the Colonial Office as valuable sources of information. The example which the noble Lord gave as to the feeling of Australia with regard to the importation into South Africa of Chinese labour was not, in my opinion, the happiest he could have chosen. He said Australia did not know enough of the Colonial Office view, but I imagine his chief contention was that the Colonial Office did not know enough of the Australian view.
LORD MONK BRETTONMy contention was that if there had been in the Colonial Office somebody who knew Australia personally, he would have been able to inform the Secretary of State for the Colonies of the intensity of opinion in Australia with regard to the Chinese labour question.
§ THE EARL OF ABERDEENI should have thought the colonial Governors would have been able to convey information on such a point. But I merely rose to express my conviction that the reply of the noble Duke would in the main be regarded as eminently satisfactory, not only by your Lordships' House and this country, but by the Colonies.
§ THE MARQUESS OF RIPONMy Lords, I can add nothing to what has fallen from the noble Earl who has just sat down, but I think, perhaps, as I had the honour of filling the position of Colonial Secretary for three years, I ought to say with what satisfaction I heard the Answer of the noble Duke the Under-Secretary. I feel convinced that the proposal of the noble Lord behind me is one which ought not to be entertained. It is a delicate proposal, and I think I should not be very wrong if I said it was a dangerous one. During the time that I occupied the position of Colonial Secretary I never found the slightest difficulty in obtaining any information which I required in regard to what was going on in our self-governing Colonies, and I do not know that any other Secretary of State has found it more difficult than I did. You may rely upon it that a proposal of this kind would not be acceptable to the self-governing Colonies. They would regard with suspicion—undue suspicion, no doubt, but they would regard with suspicion—the person who was put in the position sketched by the noble Lord behind me, and I am very glad indeed to learn that His Majesty's Government do not intend to entertain any proposal of the kind.
*THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of LANSDOWNE)My Lords, I think your Lordships could have scarcely gathered from the terms of the Notice which the noble Lord put on the Paper that he was going to bring before us so serious and far-reaching a proposal as that which he has sketched out. I thought, when I saw the Notice, that he was going to call attention to the refusal of the Colonial Office to place some particular clerk at the disposal of some particular Governor, but I understand him to suggest a great deal more than that. What I understand him to suggest is that each Governor-General or Governor should be, so to speak, reinforced by the addition to his staff of a certain number of officials connected with the Colonies who will not quit their official posts when a change in the office of Governor takes place. That is, I think, a serious proposal, and one 984 which, as the noble Marquess has told us, would be regarded with grave misgivings by the self-governing Colonies. I think, if the noble Lord will forgive me for saying so, he showed how completely he misapprehends the case when he attempted to set up an analogy between these colonial appointments and appointments under the Foreign Office. The two things are entirely different. The position of a Colonial Governor is not that of an Ambassador. An ambassador represents his country at a foreign Court. It is his business to watch the proceedings of the foreign Government as closely as he can, and in reporting to his own Government he acts upon his own responsibility. The position of a Colonial Governor is entirely different. He is the representative of a constitutional Sovereign, and is himself the constitutional head of the Colonial Government, and although he has many and very valuable opportunities of making the Government at home aware of his personal views, he is constitutionally bound to act upon the advice of his own responsible Ministers. I am convinced that an endeavour to set up a little colonial secretariat in each of the self-governing Colonies would be a chronic source of suspicion and friction between the Governor and his constitutional advisers, and would be liable to create the impression that the representative of the Crown relied, not on his Ministers, but upon his own secretariat. The new Governor-General or Governor should be able to obtain the service of the best men for his staff that he can collect, and there may sometimes be a great advantage in his keeping on one or two members of the outgoing Governor's staff, but further than that I certainly would not go. There may be also some advantage from the occasional employment of Colonial Office clerks or other officers in the Colonies. That is a most useful practice; it is occasionally resorted to; but it differs entirely from the much wider proposal sketched out by the noble Lord, to which I hope no encouragement will be given.
§ House adjourned at twenty minutes before Six o'clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock