HL Deb 12 May 1948 vol 155 cc867-901

5.50 p.m.

LORD TWEEDSMUIR rose to call attention to conditions in His Majesty's Colonial Service; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, although I consider the Motion which I have down on the Paper to be of pressing importance I can still make my points very briefly. I am glad to see that the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, is down to speak. Fourteen years ago, in very different capacities and very different parts of the world, we were colleagues in the Colonial Service, at a time when the noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, and later the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, presided over the Colonial Office. We are spending millions, and tens of millions, of pounds in the Colonial Empire, but unless we make a wise and judicious investment of our human capital those millions will count for nothing.

These are days of considerable uncertainty. He would be a very brave man who would foretell exactly what the shape of the Colonial Empire will be in the year 1960. But at this moment we have 60,000,000 people who are entirely dependent upon us for their good guidance, for, their protection and for their future well being. If you count all the employees, in all the territories, who come within the sphere of the Secretary of State, they number 300,000. But the administrative service, to which I shall principally address myself, numbers about 1,700. It is a shrinking service, and we always intended that it should be. We have just speeded Ceylon, with all our good wishes, past the milestone, from a Colonial territory to Dominion status. There will be more Ceylons as time goes on, and more British-born officials will-be replaced by those born in the territories themselves. We can maintain what we have built up, and can discharge our responsibility to the people of those territories, only if we attract the best personnel into the Colonial Service. It is the best or nothing. I think that a young man on the threshold of his career to-day, looking at the picture in front of him, might well feel that perhaps he was investing the capital of his career in a gold mine which he knew was largely worked out. We must have the best people. How can we continue to get them? That is why I am asking His Majesty's Government (and this is the purpose of the Motion) what plans they have made to ensure that we shall continue to attract the type of people who have built up the Colonial Empire to its present strength.

I would like to let drop one thought. At the present moment, I believe, the Secretary of State for the Colonies is overworked to the point when he cannot possibly do his job. If you do a short division sum, you will find that he can devote less than a week of his time in any one year to the affairs of any one territory. He has so much to do that he cannot travel about the Colonial Empire, as he should. I believe that if we had a Secretary of State for Africa, or perhaps an Under-Secretary of State, it would do a great deal of good to remedy that particular point.

Fourteen years ago, when I was a colonial servant, the prospects were indeed inviting. The reputation of the Colonial Service was built up, not entirely by men like Lord Lugard, who earned such great distinction, but also by many thousands whose names will never reach the history books, but who did a splendid job. If we are to continue to attract the best, we must be able to offer three things—prospects, reasonable security of employment and reasonable terms of service. As short a time as fourteen years ago, if one served in the Colonial Service, one was, in most territories, serving in a kind of enclave which was to a great extent insulated from the rest of the world. But now most of these Colonies and territories are so coupled with world politics and world economy that a knowledge of these subjects is necessary to attain the highest positions. The district officer, who bears the heat and burden of the day, is the front-line soldier of the Colonial Service. We cannot attract the best people unless they feel, if they go in at the bottom, that they have a reasonable chance one day of rising to the top. On the question of ordinary promotion (on this I would like to question His Majesty's Government) so often in a single territory there is a local bottleneck in promotion. The principle of inter-territorial grouping is gaining ground. It was contemplated in the East African territories that inter-territorial posting should take place. The Montego Bay Conference in the West Indies proposed it. It has been adopted to a limited extent in the South Pacific Health Service, between New Zealand, Fiji and one or two territories in the West Pacific. I understand that it is also in force between certain departments in Gambia and Sierra Leone. I would like the noble Earl to give us what information he can as to the development of this trend.

I do not know how many of your Lordships have studied a publication known as the Devonshire Report which came out in 1946. In that it was suggested that Colonial servants should undertake three courses, the first before they took up their position in their particular territory. I imagine that that is not dissimilar to the one which I myself took in 1934. The second course was to be for officers of all branches of the Colonial Service, after an early tour of duty. Those of us who have been in the Army know how often in big formations the General Staff become insulated from the other services, with whom they are completely inter-dependent. The same thing is rather apt to happen in the Colonial Service. An administrative officer is often not quite sure what the members of other services do, and he is rather apt to discount them. This second course was to be for officers of all branches, where they could meet in the light of some experience and talk over common problems.

The third course, later on, at a suitable time, was to be for selected officers, who could study specialist subjects and broaden their knowledge to the point where they could take up the highest posts. I would ask His Majesty's Government whether they can tell us to what extent effect has been given to that Report. Such courses, if they were effective in the Service as a whole, would mean a rather larger staff. To have three officers active there would probably have to be four on the establishment; conditions are now changing so fast. The future of nearly all the Colonial territories lies in the sphere of secondary industry; and, what never existed in my day, trade unions are growing up all over the Colonial Empire. A knowledge of industry and of trade unions is now a vital necessity for a senior Colonial officer. Those courses which I have mentioned—particularly that third selective course—will give an official marked for promotion some chance to master them.

My second point is security. If an officer has spent much of his life in a territory, and that territory passes from the sphere of the Colonial Office, what is to happen to him? Ceylon and Palestine, I believe, will be the touchstone for many people now considering making this Service their career. In Ceylon, I understand, the British-born members of the Administration were reduced progressively, and when the changeover came some were pensioned and some were taken on by the Ceylon Government. The noble Earl will be able to correct me if I am wrong about that I would like to know from him what prevision is being made for the Colonial servants in Palestine, where years of effort on our part have finally ended in blood and bitterness.

My third point is reasonable terms; and this is my last big point. A great deal of cant is talked, and much more written, about white man's countries. A white man's country may be so, for a young and strong man, but not so much for his wife or his family. A Colonial servant badly needs his leave. In most cases he has a paid leave passage home to England at certain stated periods, but I regard it as a scandal that officers serving in the notably unhealthy climate of British Guiana, should not be able to return home on leave unless they pay their own passage. There is another matter. Those officers whose homes and domicile lie outside the United Kingdom have their passage paid home only every alternate leave. It may be argued that that affects only a small number of people. It is not surprising. With that poor inducement few people who were domiciled outside this country would be attracted to the Service.

The next point is education. An overwhelming number of British-born officials will want their children educated in this country. There is no provision that I know of for giving them any assistance to that end; and if their children are sent home to be educated it means maintaining two establishments—a costly course to adopt. I have heard it said that allowance is made for that in their salaries. If you remove from their salaries everything which is supposed to be a hidden allowance, there is a pretty "skinny" remainder left. Then I would say a word with regard to pensions. They are paid, as contributory amounts from the officials' salaries. In most territories, salaries are rising, or will rise in the near future, and pensions will rise with them. That gets the man who is now enjoying a pension exactly nowhere. If salaries are rising—and the pensions are part of salary—then those who are pensioned at this moment are entitled to some rise in their pension, because those pensions are paid from the funds of the Colony, whose ability to pay larger salaries is in part due to the pensioner himself.

I am now coming to an end. I have made these points, and I would be grateful to the noble Earl if he would address himself to them in his reply. We built this Colonial Empire up by quality. Quality is the only measure of value; quantity is a mere measure of volume. I believe that we have come to a turning point, and unless we can offer to the Colonial Service of the future some prospects, some security and some really reasonable terms of service, we shall not get the people who built the Colonial Empire to what it is, and who maintained it to this day. And the millions we have spent, are spending, and intend to spend in the Colonies will be as nothing, if we cannot make a prudent and reasonable investment of our human capital. I beg to move for Papers.

6.4 p.m.

LORD MILVERTON

My Lords, I wish to make a very brief intervention in this debate, because I think that perhaps out of my personal experience I may be able to supplement one or two of the points which the noble Lord has just made. May I say that I shall not attempt in any way to answer some of the questions which he has asked, because Obviously that would not be the function of a Back Bencher; it is the function of the noble Lord who will reply on behalf of the Government at the end of this debate. The fact that I do not mention certain things for which the noble Lord has asked does not mean that I have any doubts about the desirability that the best that this country can give should be given for the Colonial Civil Service. As we all know to-day, much depends in the future upon the way in which the Colonial Empire is administered and is led along the path which has been marked out for it by our policy, and therefore it is necessary to secure the best.

I should like to say one or two things about the quality of the Colonial Service. It is my experience—and I can say this safely, without fear of contradiction from anybody who knows the subject—that we are to-day, for whatever the reasons may be (and it would be easy to give the reasons) attracting to the Colonial Service a better type of man than we have ever attracted before. The new recruits to the Colonial Service give great cause for hope for the future to anybody who has the welfare of that Service at heart. Heaven knows that the task which they have to face is a far more difficult one than, say, the task I had to face when I entered the Service many years ago, or the noble Lord who moved this Motion had to face when he entered it at a much later date. There never has been a time like the present when we need, and must have, the best, and for the moment we are getting the best. May I say, too, that the method of training which has been instituted by the Colonial Office is now of a far higher grade, far more carefully thought out, more carefully prepared and followed up than has ever been the case before. The Colonial civil servant of to-day goes to meet the difficulties of his task a far better trained man. In the past we were rather thrown out to our job. We went there and had to make the best we could of it and hope that we could find a senior officer who would take enough personal interest to assist in teaching us. I remember saying in days gone by that it was rather like taking a medical student of a year or two's standing, throwing him out and telling him to learn to be a doctor. Those days have gone, and there is a systemised series of arrangements for fitting our officers for the jobs which they have to face.

The noble Lord referred to the Colonial Administrative Service as a diminishing body. In point of fact, at the present moment it probably is not a diminishing body. There were appalling wastages and arrears to be made up through all the war years, during which a diminishing body of men bore incredible burdens, and from which they emerged very tired and much in need of a rest. Those wastages are now being made good, but it is true, on a broad outlook, that the natural corollary of our policy is that the Colonial Administrative Service, recruited from this country, should be a diminishing body, because as they train the people of those countries to administer their own affairs it is obvious that the need for so many will slowly diminish.

I would like to correct any impression there may be that this is—to use the noble Lord's expression—" putting one's capital into a gold mine which is largely worked out." Personally, I regard the future of the Colonial Empire as likely to be an even more brilliant one than it has ever been in the past. Anyone who has known it—as so many of your Lordships have, all over the world—will realise the immense possibilities which are still left, and the great work which there is to be done in increasing collaboration with the various inhabitants of those countries. May I say, too, that that collaboration is being freely given. One is apt to get too coloured an impression by the stress which is laid upon occasional difficulties and troubles which occur in the Colonies, but the moment the Colonial civil servant goes out to a Colony, wherever it may be, the first thing that he learns—if he ever had any doubt about it before—is that his presence there is welcome and that he belongs to a body of men who are deeply respected by ninety-nine out of every hundred of the community in which he works. I hope that the day will never come when he will cease to be regarded as their friend.

I remember—if I may indulge in a personal reminiscence for a moment—taking an American Consul General across the middle of Nigeria on one occasion. Even he, representing a type of man who was well informed in every respect, was amazed at what he saw. He turned to me at the end of a fortnight of this journeying and said: "Do you know, it has occurred to me that if your presence was not welcomed in this country, it would be quite impossible for a handful of Englishmen to carry on this work as they do." That is the impression on every honest observer who goes about our Colonies. I stress these points because I want to encourage the recruit to the Colonial Service, in every way I can, to realise that he has a great prospect before him. One has, of course, to realise that the aim in the distant future is that has presence will not be required; but that is not at present. No person who knows anything of the subject can believe that in the life-time of anybody joining the service to-day that service will not provide an ample career; there is a long way to go before these Colonies will be able to do without the advice, help, and support of the British services.

I made one or two notes as the noble Lord proceeded, but I do not propose to make any comment; obviously, it is net for me to do so. He made some remarks about Ceylon and Palestine, but they do not provide much of a parallel to many of the other Colonies with which we are dealing at the moment. I should like, however, to say a word about his remarks on the subject of promotion and the methods of promotion. It is quite true to say that the district officer is, and always has been, the backbone of the Colonial Service. And, if I may say so, I think it is desirable, if possible, that people who rise to the high position of Governor should in their earlier days have been a district officer. I spent the first ten years of my career doing that sort of work and it is an experience which I am sure is necessary before one rises to the highest position, in order to be able to put oneself in the position of the man who is doing that kind of work. But it is also true to say that many of the best district officers are men whose capacity is limited to that type of work. Under out system to-day those who have responsibility for promotion to higher posts are constantly reviewing the list of the younger district officers, and if they see a man who might obviously rise to a higher position, where he has to deal with policy he is given every opportunity and is tried out for those positions. Every prudent Administration know for many years ahead who are the prospective leaders of that service—always provided, of course that they continue to show the promise which they have exhibited at the time.

That is all I wish to contribute to this debate, except to say that there never was a time when the young man had to realise more clearly that, whatever he does, he cannot find to-day what used to be called the security of the Home Civil Service. No man can hope to live to-day, just as no nation can hope to live, other than dangerously. We live in a present and look to a future where risks have to be taken. But I can think of no finer career, and no better way of spending one's ability, than in taking the risks and the great promise which are to be found in the work of the Colonial Civil Service.

6.15 p.m.

LORD HARLECH

My Lords, I am sure the noble Lord who introduced this Motion will agree that it has been amply justified by its having given rise to the speech to which we have just listened. Lord Milverton comes among us after a remarkably varied career in different parts of the Colonial Empire, and what he has said to us this afternoon is the fruit of his most wise and successful experience. I rise this afternon merely to dot the i's and cross the t's of some of the things he has said. I am quite sure we ought not to appeal to the young man of to-day for either the administrative or any other of the Colonial services on the ground that he is going to a safe or an easy job. The people who have built up the Colonial Empire have been people with a sense of adventure, and it is essential that that idea of adventure should always be kept in mind.

The pace of the development of all the peoples of the Colonial Empire, both economically and educationally, is of course increasing year by year, because we are spreading education; we are giving to these people access to university education, either in their own country or here; and it is quite right and indeed inevitable that in the future in all the Colonial Services men from universities in this country, who may never before have been out of this country, will find themselves having to work alongside Africans, Malays, Chinese, and all sorts of people, on terms of absolute equality, social and otherwise.

Now let me say something about training. The Government have done a good deal to put into force the recommendations of the first part of the Devonshire Committee Report; and, as Chairman of the governing body of the London School of Oriental and African Languages, I have seen something of the new post-war entry that has recently been trained. I am quite satisfied that there has never been an entry better in quality than I saw last year at that school. Moreover, the quality of their training before they go out has also been immensely improved compared to what it was when I entered the Colonial Office and we started the courses at Oxford and Cambridge. I still attach the utmost importance to language. I am quite sure that any officer, not only an administrative officer but an agricultural or educational officer, even if he does not have to use the native vernacular nearly so much in the future as in the past, must know something of that vernacular.

Remember, my Lords, the basic fact about Africa and the African. Until his contact with us, the African had never invented or known a written language. His whole means of communication was phonetic, being entirely by ear. Everything was handed on from generation to generation orally, and not by written tradition and communication. I am quite sure that we can never begin to understand the African mind unless we have a knowledge of the form of thought by which the African thinks. I do not attach great importance to one being an expert linguist, grammatically and orthographically correct in a number of local vernaculars, but I do say that anybody going to Bantu Africa who cannot understand the Bantu language and speaks it only a little will not really get into touch with the great mass of the people. If one does know one Bantu language, one at least has a key to the form of thought of other peoples speaking another form of Bantu. It is the same with the Sudanic language in West Africa. Therefore, language is very important.

Looking back on the story of Britain in India, we can see that we overdid the attempt to Anglicise everything. I have said before in this House that Lord Macaulay's ideas of education and of imposing English traditions of education upon another people and another culture have not been wholly successful. It is true that it gave them something immensely valuable which they had not before, but it had its bad side; we cannot get away from it. We do not go to these Colonies to de-nationalise them and to impose our ideas of culture and civilisation upon them, but merely to facilitate those people developing their own characteristics according to their own traditions in a very difficult world, often possessing only primitive standards and primitive narrow ideas, to a level where they can live and hold their own among the other peoples of mankind.

Preliminary training is all-important, and I hope that the further recommendations—I do not say in every detail but in broad outline—for refresher courses, or whatever you like to call them, will later on also be carried forward, if only to bring together for a long period young Colonial officers of all services, and not only the administrative service, to interchange their own experiences over their first years of life and provide them with a higher staff education. In fact, what we need is a staff college for the Colonial services just as we have staff colleges at Camberley for the Army and at Greenwich for the Navy. I am quite convinced that that is absolutely essential. I have seen most of the Colonial Empire in the course of the last thirty years and from my experience I am not unduly worried about the administrative service. I am much more worried about the other services being up to the necessary standards, or even to the standard of the administrative service. It is no use having a brilliant engineer, a brilliant agriculturist or a good "vet," and certainly a good schoolmaster, unless he has the same approach in adapting his science as the administrative officer has in applying the fundamentals of the law and order of politics and the basis and structure of government among the people whom he is serving. Too often the technical services have lagged behind the administrative service in their contacts with the people. Also, they have tended more than the administrative service to get into a groove. If one goes to single crop countries, or to places where there is one particular type of agriculture, it is perhaps inevitable that the tendency seems to be in this direction.

That brings me to another point, and that is that, apart from staff courses later in their career, there should be interchange. It was often said to me when at the Colonial Office I used to harp on the importance of more interchange at all stages: "Oh, but you are a great advocate of knowledge of the vernacular, and surely that is contradictory to what you are now advocating." There I think that the language question can be overstressed and one can attach too much importance to it, particularly among the technical officers and the middle and certainly the higher ranks of the administrative service. Once they know one vernacular they need not necessarily learn another; but at least they know that there is a problem in the fact that we are dealing with a people who do not naturally speak our language, and they have some idea of their processes of thought. I am convinced that, in the interests of all officers, but particularly in the interests of technical officers, more interchange of experience is necessary for their efficiency and their growth, and fiat more movement about the Colonial Empire is desirable in the interests of each and every part of it.

I come now to the question of the Promotions Committee. There is the problem of selecting people who are to be trained to be the leaders. There again we have to be very careful. The original selection is, quite rightly, based on collecting men of character with a good standard of education, but not all of an equally high standard of mere intellectual education. Obviously, for the people who are going to be Colonial Secretaries and Chief Secretaries, the people who are to run the Secretariats, we must have those who can hold their own with the home civil servants and write the despatches and deal with the paper work of government. Those people are, of course, necessary but they are not always the most successful administrative officers or technical officers in the field in contact with the indigenous populations. We want to give both kinds a chance of promotion.

The truth about promotion, of course, is that at the Colonial Office we are dependent for interchange from one Colonial administration to another almost entirely on the confidential reports sent in by various Governors. When I was in the Colonial Office and I had a confidential report on an officer sent up to me, I used to ask, "Who wrote that report?" Frankly, there are some people whose reports are worth a great deal more than others. It is the same in the Army and in nearly every other Service. Some people can tell you fearlessly and objectively the whole truth, the good, the bad, and the indifferent about an individual, without any offence; and others cannot do that. On the whole, just as there is in the Army, I think there is a little danger lest Governors and Colonial Secretaries who draw up these reports are frightened of telling the whole truth. They always say: "Well, this confidential report will get out, and if I say this, that and the other about a man, it may not be absolutely fair to him. I will give him another chance." But it is in the interests of the man himself, as well as of the Service and of the Empire as a whole, that those confidential reports should be as objective and truthful as possible. I feel that great importance should be attached to that.

I cannot talk on this subject without paying my tribute to one outstanding man in the history of the Colonial Empire in the last thirty years; I refer to Sir Ralph Furse. The Colonial Empire owes more to him—and I say this frankly, as an ex-Colonial Secretary—than to any Colonial Secretary, and to many another person whose name is known in connection with him. The amount of work that he and his staff have done, quietly and unostentatiously, in the recruiting, the training and the follow-up of the Service is tremendous. Only one who has seen it, and knows of it, can realise the great debt of gratitude that we owe to that man and his staff. It has been a quite outstanding service; to that I can testify.

I have only one small point of my own to make. It has been my lot, in addition to spending a lot of time in the Colonial Empire and in the Colonial Office, to be High Commissioner in South Africa, and I had under me three territories where one is virtually in the position of a Colonial Governor. They are not under the Colonial Office, but under the Dominions Office—the only territories that are under what is now the Commonwealth Relations Office; and, of course, they are dependent upon borrowing the necessary staff from the Colonial Service. I am quite sure that the interests of the officers whom we send out from this country to those three territories in South Africa under the Commonwealth Relations Office, demand that they be given equal chances of promotion and interchange with those who are under the Colonial Office in the rest of the Colonial Service. For one reason or another, it has been inevitable recently that the senior officer there, the Resident Commissioner, should almost invariably be taken from the senior ranks of the administrative side of the Colonial Service. Consequently, there is an impression in those three territories that the members of the service can never get ahead; that they are in a blind alley, and are "nobody's child." That is unfortunate, though I would remind the House that I think Sir Robert Correndon started there and eventually earned distinction as Governor of Uganda and Kenya. There are several others who have climbed the ladder, but more by good luck than good management.

The complete integration of the staff and policy, not only in the administrative, but in the medical and other services, with the three High Commission territories in South Africa is, to my mind, vital both in the interests of the officers concerned and in the interests of those three territories and of our future relations with the Union of South Africa. For in the Union of South Africa they judge our Colonial policy, and our work in the rest of Africa, by what they see in the three territories in their midst. Unless our standard of personnel, our standard of achievement and our policy in those three territories is kept up to the best standards that we have in East or West Africa we are not doing what we should do vis-à-vis the Union and our future relations with the Union in Africa. I want to make that very special point because, certainly from my experience, it stood out as a most essential factor in the whole business.

I would like to express regret that Lord Hailey has not been able to stay, as he has just returned from Africa. Apart from the change in political and educational standards, we are now living in entirely new economic circumstances, and of course inevitably the administrative officer, dealing with the indigenous peoples there, now has to face not only private corporations, but these great Government organisations like the Food Commission and those responsible for schemes such as the ground-nuts scheme in Tanganyika. I want to see the Colonial Office supporting the local Governor, the local native Commissioner, and the local officers who know the people of that country; I want to see them protecting those people against exploitation by the large capitalist undertakings, whether they belong to or are managed by the State or by an individual corporation. I regard that as absolutely vital. It is no use we in this country saying that every step will be taken to prevent any exploitation of the native. Unless the local native has the administrative officer to keep his end up when he has a grievance vis-à-vis a powerful, mechanised, highly organised body—a sort of separate entity of the British Government, sent out to develop his country—I know that under the whole circumstances of the set-up injustice will be done to the native—not intentionally, but inevitably.

For that reason, I would like to see these men in other experiments, such as the ground-nuts scheme, which the Government may have in mind (it may be oil palms in Nigeria, or another crop somewhere else) for which, with the economic stresses of the world, there is much to be said, effectively placed under the local Chief Native Commissioner, or whatever he may be called (perhaps the Secretary for Native Affairs), and under the local Governor, who is an experienced Colonial administrator; they should not be run from London by the orders of a board. That is absolutely vital, if we are not to have, with disastrous results for native progress and relations, a dichotomy and a diarchy in the midst of every one of those Colonies where that kind of scheme is in force. I hope the noble Earl who is to reply will assure us that some further instalments of the Devonshire proposals are in store, and that the Government are sympathetic to the views that have been expressed by all three speakers so far this afternoon.

6.39 p.m.

LORD RENNELL

My Lords, I hope it will not be thought that I am in any way striking a discordant note after the speeches that have been made, which must leave the impression that in the Colonial Service (especially the Colonial Service in so far as it has been recruited since the war) everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. The noble Lord, Lord Tweedsmuir, spoke of the terms of service, and I think he meant to draw particular attention to the material terms of service—namely, pay, pensions, leave passages and matters of that kind. I would like to address myself not to the material side of the terms of the Colonial Service, but to their morale or spirit. By a curious coincidence, not knowing that this Motion was going to be tabled, I happen in the course of the last two months to have had a number of communications from, and to have seen, a number of people from both Last African and West African Colonies. From five separate persons I have, unfortunately, heard the same story, which leads me to a feeling of rather considerable anxiety about the frame of mind in which many of our Colonial civil servants in Africa are at the present time.

I had, during the war, a large number of Colonial civil servants serving under me, both in Africa and elsewhere. I have no partisan view about any one Colony or any one service, nor are the cases to which I refer—except in two instances—cases of officers who served under ma. What I say is quite unprejudiced; I am in no way personally concerned. These men have all brought back the same story. One can see how the situation has arisen, and I would like to draw the attention of noble Lords opposite to it, in the hope that some remedy may be found. The complaint which is made is not by any means, or in the first place, in regard to terms of service. There are, it is true, difficulties about salaries, allowances, pay, pension rights, and so on, which are, doubtless, being looked into. Indeed, I know that they are being looked into, and I have no doubt that they will be remedied. The difficulty which I see is engendered by a feeling about their work on the part of the best of these men. How good they are has been told by the noble Lord who has just sat down, and I should be the first to agree with everything that both he and the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, have said about the quality of the men involved. They are, however, not happy in many cases, not on account of pay and conditions, but because of the work they are called upon to do.

The men of whom I speak are each unknown to the others. Two administrative officers, and one officer in departmental or specialised service in West Africa have all complained about being unable to do the work that they feel they were sent to Africa to do. Administrative officers are finding themselves tied, up in their offices with not enough time to get around their districts and with no time at all to get into contact with the people whose affairs they are supposed to be administering. They are inundated with paper. They are inundated with calls for returns from the Secretariat. They find themselves exasperated by having questions addressed to them not once but twice or three times in a slightly different form from offices the occupants of which, they feel, ought to be able to answer the questions themselves, instead of just passing paper and files along to the unfortunate district officer. In one particular case of which I have heard—and I shall be glad to furnish an appropriate extract from a long letter which I have had on precisely these lines from a fairly senior officer in West Africa, provided his identity can be concealed—the officer concerned has gone so far as to hand in his resignation from the administrative service owing to his feeling that he cannot get on and do the job for which he is paid. It is not for the purpose of getting out of the Colonial Service that he has handed in his resignation. He is an unmarried man with sufficient money of his own and property in England to enable him to return at any time he washes, but he is asking to be transferred out of the administrative service into another department, because he feels that he cannot do the job which he is paid to do. He has had to rely, in the last three or four years, in the Province to which he has been posted, on departmental officers, on officers who are sent out on temporary contracts—I believe for development purposes and in connection with special plans—for the contact with the people which he ought to be having and which he is unable to obtain on account of the office work and the table work that he has to do.

Here in the case of this officer and two others, we have examples of men who are not complaining about the material terms of their service. They are devoted to their work, and rather than return here they would prefer to stay in another capacity out in Africa. They desire to take up appointments in which they feel they can be useful rather than to continue in the administrative service where they are exasperated and obstructed by the amount of paper work which they are called upon to do. This information has come to me from both West Africa and East Africa and from men whose quality is quite beyond a per-adventure—it is undoubtedly of the highest. It has also come from men who do not wish to resign, men who are not, as the common saying has it, disgruntled but who feel there is something wrong in their particular service and wish to show by their own departure where things have gone wrong. If we are to continue to have the best men, as we have now—and may I say here how profoundly I agree with Lord Harlech in what he said about the work Sir Ralph Furse has done for recruiting for the Colonial Services—and if we are to use those men to the best advantage, they must be happy in their work. They must be happy not only with regard to pay but in the spirit in which they perform their work.

The situation is one which I believe to be somewhat serious. I know of young men who have been sent out to the Colonies since the war, through Sir Ralph Furse's organisation, and who have come home and have resigned. I asked the noble Earl who is going to reply on behalf of the Government, when I spoke to him about this matter yesterday, whether he has any data and whether he has been able to ascertain how many young men who have gone out since the war have already resigned and come back for reasons of the sort which I have mentioned—namely, that they are not happy about the work they have been called upon to do. I know two particular cases of men who have come back and who say they have done so because they consider they were taken into the Colonial Service under false pretences. When they told me this I said to them: "What do you mean by false pretences? Are the terms not what you expected?" They replied: "Yes, the material terms are all that we expected. But we thought we were sent out to administer and govern Colonies, and not to be underpaid and overworked accountants, doing accounting work in offices for seven days a week." One can see how such a situation has arisen, but one of the remedies is fairly clear. It is that the district officer should not be condemned to doing accountant's work; he should be allowed to administer, and an accountant should be provided for him. I think that, in many instances, accountants could be recruited from among Africans to a greater extent than has been the practice up to date.

It is a waste of man-power to take a man from England, send him out there, pay his passage, pay his leave, and put him to keeping native administration treasury records. That is what has been going on. One man found himself exasperated to such an extent that he left, because the Secretariat in the Colony in which he was situated called for three revisions and three redrafts on small points of a native administration budget. There was no one else there to do it. He ought to have been doing his own job, but instead of that he was condemned to sitting, metaphorically speaking, with wet towels round his head, in an office, in a not very salubrious climate, trying to work out budget after budget and having them sent back. Finally he was asked his opinion about something, knowing that the decision relevant to that matter had already been given in the Secretariat. That sort of thing does not promote a high morale even among this very high quality human material.

Why that has arisen is fairly clear. It has arisen from the great development schemes in the Colonies. Colonial Governments are now being called upon to do a great deal more than was ever conceived before the war. Moreover, with the facility of communication and the greater contact that exists between many African Colonies and people in this country, there are many more people interested in asking questions; more work is thrown on local Governments, and all the way down the line to the administrative officer, in the need for providing data in case somebody asks a question. That is not a criticism of this or any other Government, but it is a criticism that it should affect the morale of Colonial civil servants. Between the people who ask for informal ion in Westminster and the unfortunate administrative officer there must be placed a screen, to protect him and allow him to get on with his job. At present, he suffers from being used for purposes outside the terms of his contract.

I should like to deal with another point which arises out of what the noble Lords, Lord Tweedsmuir and Lord Harlech, have said about training, refresher courses and interchange between Colonies and between Services. In spite of having the largest Colonial Empire in the world, we in this country, curiously enough, have little in the way of institutional organisation for the study of the Colonies. The schools in France and Belgium are both of longer standing and far more elaborate than anything we have in England. A scheme for training and refresher courses is long overdue, and I hope very much that that will be instituted as soon as possible, even if it requires additional personnel. I would go one stage farther. In the course of some experience of the African territories, not only of British territories, but of French and Belgian and other territories, the thing that struck me forcibly was that every major Colonial territory have their foreign relations, their local domestic foreign relations, which require consider-able co-ordination between contiguous territories—between the four British territories in West Africa and the intervening French Colonies, for example; and between Uganda, Tanganyika and he Portuguese Colonies.

The noble Viscount, Lord Swinton, knows this far better than I do, because he was mainly responsible for instituting this in West Africa. In the major centres of the foreign Colonial territories we have a British representation, in the form of Consulates and Consulates General, staffed, in the main, by personnel from the Foreign Office. I have found—and I think the noble Viscount and those who have some direct personal experience of this will agree with me—that there is a great deal lacking in the knowledge possessed by the Foreign Service of administrative and Colonial matters. Possibly a certain amount can be said on the other side as well. Has the time not come to institute, within a limited number of people, an interchange of personnel between our Foreign Service and the Colonial Service? I believe some proposal of this sort has been under discussion. Would it not be desirable in certain British Colonies—for their own foreign problems, say of labour, subversive activities and so on—to attach to the headquarters of the Government one or more officers from the Foreign Service? Even in the highest ranks of both the Foreign and Colonial Services I found a very great degree of ignorance. Frankly, our ambassadors know little about our Colonies; in many cases, they know virtually nothing. Perhaps some of our Colonial Governors do not know very much of how our Foreign Service run the Embassies.

In Africa, with this hotchpotch of territories which has happened, instead of being carefully devised, we cannot afford to have our Colonial and Foreign Services working in watertight compartments. I regret to say that I have sometimes seen them look at one another sideways. I urge that the training and refresher courses and interchange should now be extended to include inter-Service exchanges without loss of seniority, even if only on an experimental basis. I believe the new ideas that will be brought in by this interchange will go some way to provide that broader attitude of mind to which the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, referred as being one of the consequences which he hoped would follow the refresher courses. That interchange could be extended within limits to our home Civil Service on technical and departmental problems, again in both directions. To summarise my remarks: I hope that the morale in the African Service is better than the evidence I have lately had leads me to believe. If we are to conserve the best men it is important to have them right in mind as well as solvent in pocket. Without both these things, we shall not get the best. We can get one by giving good pay and pensions, but we cannot get the other without looking into the secretarial and paper work which the officers are condemned to do. My second point is on interchange, but I have spoken on that so recently that I will not repeat it. I should like to ask the noble Earl who is to reply whether a scheme of that sort is possible.

6.59 p.m.

LORD ALTRINCHAM

My Lords, I assure you at once that I shall not commit the enormity of addressing you for many minutes. But as one who spent five years in the Colonial Service in Africa, I am most anxious to make one or two points in this discussion and to support my noble friend behind me who introduced this Motion. Let me speak exclusively on the welfare of the Colonial Service. As warmly as any of those who have already spoken, I would wish to pay my tribute to the work of Sir Ralph Furse. Over a long period his success, his judgment and his dignity have been of inestimable value to the Government, to all Colonial territories and to the whole Commonwealth. I am glad his name has been mentioned. Secondly, I should like to register my agreement with the noble Lord who has just spoken as to the state, I will not say of discontent, but of malaise in the Colonial Service at the present time. Of course, there are material grievances in regard to which improvements can be made. If I speak for a moment about this matter it is to mention only one point—namely, the education of children. I feel that we might do more to assist our officers overseas to get their children well educated in this country, and to help them in the great difficulty they have in finding places for them in the holidays. It is a desperate affair for those who have not relations in this country who are practically prepared to undertake the work of parents on their behalf. That, I think, is one of the most important of the material considerations.

But it is not on the material side that I feel the situation to be serious at the present moment; it is on the moral and spiriual side. Like the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, I have had letters from both East Africa and West Africa. I have had one from each territory, from officers of whom I have never heard, who, I suppose, have written to me because they believe I am interested in these things. It is obvious from their letters that they are officers whose hearts are absolutely in their work. Nobody could call them grousers. They are officers who are all out to serve the people in whose countries they are posted. They tell me that they feel inhibited from doing the work they ought to be doing, and they are losing touch with the people they ought to be serving. That is a terrible position to which to reduce an officer who is heart and soul desiring to do his best for the native peoples. It is little use our saying in this House and elsewhere that in setting up these great schemes of development in the Colonial Empire we count upon the co-operation of the Colonial peoples, if, in fact, we are moving into a method of administration which prevents the district officers from keeping touch as they should.

There are two difficulties for the district officer. The first is that described by the noble Lord, Lord Rennell. It is that there is too much paper work—the everlasting answering of questions, and all the rest of it. While that can be remedied to some extent by more staff, I think the only real remedy is more decentralisation. Yet there is a growing desire for centralisation, a growing refusal to give the district officer his head. I am sure that is a fatal mistake if you are going to have good men in this work. There is another aspect which we must bear in mind. It is that many of these officers are most anxious about the schemes of development. My noble friend Lord Harlech spoke about that subject. They think we are losing touch; that we are getting divided in our purpose as to these countries; and that while we say that we intend to develop the Colonial Empire entirely in the interests of their own peoples, there is a growing note in all our argument as to the tremendous advantage it is going to be to ourselves. They are very much afraid, as administrative officers, as my noble friend Lord Harlech said, that they will find themselves up against powerful organisations with the whole weight of Government behind them, and unable to give adequate protection to the African peoples. Those are two matters which I hope the noble Earl will agree are of very great importance and which ought to be investigated. If we are to take our responsibility for the Colonial peoples seriously, we should not neglect impressions of this kind, which are derived by people who certainly have no desire to appear merely as malcontents and bad officers. One of these letters, as a matter of fact, came from an officer I know very well. He was in the Kenya Government when I was there, and he has now retired and settled in Kenya. But, with all his experience, he said the same thing. It does want watching.

One other point which I would like to make may sound partly in conflict with the great desire I have for the advancement of the interests of the Colonial Service. I believe that the recruits the Service is getting are as good as they can be. I have a profound admiration for the Colonial Service and a confidence in its future if we treat it properly. I am very doubtful about a consideration which has not been urged in this debate, but which is often urged in this connection. I am doubtful whether it is wise always to insist that the topmost positions, the Governorships, should go to the Colonial Service, and that the Colonial Service are wronged if they do not get those positions. After all, in this country, to use Bagehot's phrase, we put the parrot on the donkey's back. We put in charge of Government Departments Ministers who are amateurs, but who can judge broadly and who can tell the public what is needed. They are the parrots. They have at their disposal the donkeys, who are the permanent civil servants. That is not a flattering description of either, and no doubt less flattering to the politician than the civil servant

Nevertheless, having given that description, Bagehot said that this is the soundest method ever devised. Put the non-professional at the top of a great professional organisation and you will get the best results. I think that applies absolutely to Governorships. Often what is wanted is a man completely free from the sort of growth of rigid opinion about the Service and what it should do which necesarily grows up in any Service. There is always an esprit de corps; there is always a doctrine of the Service, and it is better at times to have somebody quite independent. It is also better to have somebody who carries more influence in this country than any civil servant who has been out of the country for most of his life can possibly have. It is, further, sometimes very important to send to those places a man known to have that influence. That is a matter that may be of great importance in securing the content of the Colonial people themselves. Therefore, while I am all out for the welfare of the Colonial service, for its dignity and its advancement in every way, I hope that that condition which is often insisted upon will, at my rate, be dispassionately reconsidered.

There is one other consideration which we must not forget. All the services, when the process of promotion goes entirely within the charmed circle of the service itself, tend to make it a matter of routine. The late Lord Fisher invented a splendid term for that. He said that he always expected to wake up one morning and find that we had lost the British Empire because it was "Buggins's turn." Admiral Buggins happened to be the next for that job, and he got it, but not because he was fitted for it. That is a tendency in every service, and we must guard against it. The best way to guard against it is to make it clear when the higher posts are filled that the consideration is not merely the interests of the Service but the interests of the territory and the people there, and the interests of the Empire. That should be the first consideration. If that is always kept to the fore, then Buggins, happily, will never get his turn unless he deserves it.

Finally, let me add my warm support to what the noble Lord, Lord Milverton, said about the future of the Service. I do not think my noble friend Lord Tweedsmuir meant what he said in the sense that this is a worked-out mine. It is the greatest Service to which young Englishmen, Scotsmen, Welshmen and Irishmen can devote themselves. I am delighted at the entry which we are getting at the present time, and I hope it will continue. I believe that this Service will justify itself to the Commonwealth and to the world, if we treat it with sympathy and understanding.

7.10 p.m.

THE EARL OF LISTOWEL

My Lords, I think the number of noble Lords present in the Chamber is quite often no true measure of the interest taken by your Lordships in the subject under discussion, because what may be a feast to the experts is apt to become caviare to the general. I shall cater for the Colonial epicures, in the shape of former Secretaries of State and Colonial Governors, by giving them as full a reply as I can and taking the risk of being blamed for speaking at such length at this hour of the evening. I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Tweedsmuir, for giving the House this opportunity to discuss the Colonial Service, and I know that my gratitude is shared by all those connected with the Colonies. It is not often that public attention is directed to the fine work—as has been acknowledged by every speaker—that is being carried out by public servants in the Colonies and Protectorates of our Commonwealth. Throughout those territories they are maintaining the high standards of administration of which this country is justly proud, and which represent an essential part of the contribution of British political genius to the progress of mankind. The noble Lord the mover of the Motion, has himself served as a member of the Colonial Administrative Service in Uganda, and speaks with first-hand knowledge of conditions in East Africa.

The noble Lord said, among other things, that we ought to have a Secretary of State for Africa, because the Secretary of State for the Colonies is overworked, and he needs someone to share his burden. I agree that he is overworked—all Cabinet Ministers are overworked. I am not a Cabinet Minister myself, so I can say that without inviting sympathy. I should like to point out two things to the noble Lord, because I think they show that my right honourable friend's burden has been lightened; and quite recently. A Minister of State at the Colonial Office was appointed in January of this year, and I know from personal experience that my right honourable friend has been able to farm out a lot of the work he has hitherto been obliged to do himself. Secondly, we have decided to surrender the Mandate for Palestine. I do not think anyone who has not been in the Colonial Office realises how much the time of the Secretary of State has been occupied by only one of the territories for which he has had responsibility. The surrender of the Mandate will relieve him of a considerable part of the work he has had to do lately. May I answer some of the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, before I get on to the substance of what I have to say? The noble Lord complained that the district officers are pinned down to their offices by paper work. But, of course, that is a direct responsibility of Colonial Governments, rather than the Colonial Office.

LORD ALTRINCHAM

Will the noble Earl allow me to interrupt? I have been a Colonial Governor—twenty years ago—and a great deal of this work was caused by questions from the Colonial Office and, in particular, by questions asked in Parliament.

THE EARL OF LISTOWEL

What I desire to say is that the Colonial Governments should see that their district officers are not snowed under by paper work.

VISCOUNT SWINTON

Set them an example!

THE EARL OF LISTOWEL

I assure your Lordships that they are aware of the vital importance of district officers being able to circulate freely in their district. If the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, will let me have any specific complaints, I will see that they are brought to the attention of the Governors in the Colonies concerned. The other point made by the noble Lord, Lord Rennell, was about resignations from the Colonial Service. I can tell him only that we have no figures at the Colonial Office for the number of resignations among those who have actually gone out to the Colonies.

LORD RENNELL

Since the war?

THE EARL OF LISTOWEL

Since the war. But I can tell him that if there had been any large or significant number of resignations in any territory that fact would certainly have come to our ears. I hope that that will reassure the noble Lord that this has not become a serious problem in any of the Colonies.

The first point I should like to make is rather obvious, but it is sometimes overlooked. The Colonies, Protectorates and Trust territories for which we are responsible are separate units of the Administration, each with its own public service. It is true that we often speak of the Colonial Service as though it were one body, like the Foreign Service or the Home Civil Service. This expression is, in fact, a label for the aggregate of the staffs of some thirty-four separate Governments. The Colonial Service is the sum of the public Services operating in each of these territories. I say this to make it absolutely plain how much can be done by Ministers here at the Colonial Office. It is the duty of the Secretary of State to advise Colonial Governments about the conditions of service which they should offer if they are to attract Government servants of the right type and quality. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State, however, has never been able to prescribe conditions for the whole Service and to require Colonial Governments to conform to them. These people are the servants of the Government of the territory in which they work; and who pay their salaries.

My next point is this. It is a commonplace, of course, and I will not labour it, that the aim of our Colonial policy is the progressive advancement of all the Colonial peoples along the road to self-government, within the framework of the British Commonwealth of Nations. It follows from this that the public Services of the Colonies must be adjusted to local requirements, and they must be staffed to a large and ever-increasing extent by locally recruited people. It is equally important to recognise, frankly and openly—and this was stated by the noble Lord, Lord Milverton—that for a long time to come most of the Colonies will not be able to find among their own inhabitants enough suitably qualified staff to fill all the posts required by an efficient and up-to-date Administration. It is one of the chief aims of our educational policy to make young people of both sexes competent to take an active part, when they grow up, in the work of their own Governments throughout the whole Colonial field. But pending the availability of a sufficient number of locally trained personnel to staff their public services, the Colonies will Continue to look to the rest of the Commonwealth, and especially to the United Kingdom, to provide suitably qualified individuals for key posts in their administrative and technical services.

But already the vast majority of those employed by Colonial Governments are of local origin. It is estimated that the figure is about 96 per cent. of the total which, to all those who continue to think of the Colonial Service in terms of the young men who go out from the United Kingdom to the Colonies, is a striking proportion. It is extremely satisfactory—as I am sure your Lordships will agree—that so many of the indigenous population of the Colonies are now engaged in Government service. Of course, there is no bar, in whatever Colony they may work, to their promotion to the highest Government appointments in their own communities. It is true that at this moment the remaining 4 per cent. are people from this country and the Dominions; and, of course, they occupy most of the leading positions. Nevertheless, no effort is being spared to promote the advancement of locally born people in every grade to their technical and administrative services, and in the next few years we hope to see an even larger number of responsible posts held by men and women of local origin. As a practical contribution to the achievement of this aim we have set aside £1,000,000 of Colonial Development and Welfare money to provide scholarships for Colonial people who wish to obtain the academic or professional qualifications required for the higher branches of the Colonial Service. So far, nearly 200 of these scholarships have been awarded to candidates from a wide range of Colonies. This scheme will ensure that the public services of the Colonies in the next ten years will be reinforced by at least several hundred fully qualified men and women, drawn from the Colonial communities themselves.

I now turn to the recruitment and training of the Colonial Service. I will say about recruitment only that there has been a large and satisfactory expansion in the two years immediately following the war. I was delighted to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, said, speaking from his own experience, about the quality of the new recruits. The total number of recruits to the technical and administrative services during this period was equivalent to seven and a half years' normal intake. I think that says a lot for the popularity of the Colonial Service and the sense of responsibility and high adventure that still prevails among young people in this country.

But of course the work of the Colonial Office does not stop by any means at recruitment. We must equip the Colonial Service thoroughly for its task; and this means better and broader training than before the war, both on first appointment and later. Several noble Lords were interested in the subject of training and I will try to give them a brief review of the situation. Before the war, training had to be reduced or suspended, and could not begin again until the first urgently-needed post-war reinforcements had been hurried out to the Colonies. But a new start was made in the autumn of 1946, and since then there has been much progress and the field of training has been widened. In accordance with the recommendations of the Devonshire Committee, the training courses are held, not in the isolation of a staff college—there was considerable discussion of the respective merits of staff colleges and universities in this House, which many of your Lordships will remember—but in the main stream of English education. For this purpose the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and London form the present team and between them account for a high proportion of the courses. In so far as improved Colonial Service training requires increased contact between experts in this country and those with Colonial experience, it is probable that increasing use will also be made of the training facilities provided by Government Departments such as the Ministry of Labour.

The chief object of preliminary training is to instruct the recruit in the Colonial aspect of his work, administrative or otherwise. The first training course for some 120 administrative probationers has already been completed at Oxford, Cambridge and London; and the second one, with 150 probationers, has been running since last autumn. Another large batch will be starting the third course in the series next October. Alongside of it there have been special courses for agricultural education, fisheries, forestry, survey and veterinary probationers and for technical people whom we have to send out. This year it is hoped that probationers for the engineering and legal services also will be brought within the training arrangements.

The Devonshire Committee's most novel proposal was for a combined further course in this country for officers of all branches after some years of Colonial service. The first of these courses finished in March of this year. Nearly 100 officers from a wide range of Colonial territories attended it, and some 150 more have been put forward by their Governments for the next course. At the same time the special one-year post-service course at the Imperial Forestry Institute, Oxford, has been continued, and new courses in road research have been started for engineers. Training for labour officers is to begin in 1949, under the auspices of the Ministry of Labour. Four short Colonial Service Conferences have been held since the war: at Oxford in 1946, at the London School of Economics and Cambridge in 1947, and at St. Andrews in 1948. It is hoped that such Conferences will be held regularly in the future. They should fulfil two functions: a quick refresher for the officer on leave, who will be able to enjoy the chance to exchange ideas with men and women from other territories; and an opportunity of discussion of special problems common to the officers concerned. One significant aspect of post-war training courses is that Colonial-born officers have been taking them along with expatriate officers. We have mixed these classes as completely as we can. The numbers of the local men will, of course, grow as more qualify for appointment to the higher grades of the Service.

Now let me say a word about pay and other conditions of the Service. We have to remember that the rise in prices that has taken place all over the world has hit the Colonies as hard as any other territory. That has been the experience all over the Colonial territories. The main pressing concern of Colonial Governments in matters affecting pay and terms of service during the post-war years has been to adjust salaries to meet current conditions, including as a rule this general rise in prices. That need has been experienced throughout the Colonies, and a whole series of salary revisions has been undertaken since the end of the war. In many cases the need has supplied the opportunity for a comprehensive review of pay, grading and terms of service in the light of the general principles set out in the White Paper of 1946. To aid Colonial Governments in this my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has been able to enlist the services of several experienced Special Commissioners, and with this assistance comprehensive reviews have been either concluded or initiated in most of the main Colonial regions. Those reviews already concluded and made effective include the four West African colonies which were dealt with by a single Commission; and Hong Kong, Fiji, Cyprus, British Honduras and Mauritius. The reports of three other Commissions have recently been presented and are now under consideration by the Governments concerned. These reports are for East Africa, covering Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika and Zanzibar; for Central Africa, covering Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland; and for Malaya, together with Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo. Similar reviews at differing stages of progress are being carried out for Aden, Somaliland, Barbados, Seychelles, and the Western Pacific territories.

As regards pay structure, perhaps the most noteworthy general principle advocated in the White Paper of 1946 was the adoption of expatriation pay for officers from overseas where salaries fixed in relation to local circumstances at rates applicable to locally recruited staff are insufficient to attract those officers who have to be obtained from overseas. Formerly the system of expatriation pay has been applied only in Palestine; now it has been adopted in the four West African Colonies, in Hong Kong, Cyprus and Gibraltar, and it has been recommended for Malaya. Another measure of comparative novelty in the Colonies to which attention was called in the White Paper of 1946 was the establishment of Public Service Commissions, so composed as to command the confidence of the Service and the public, to advise the Governor of the Colony in the selection and appointment of candidates in the Colony to posts in the local Service. This suggestion has been generally welcomed by Colonial Governments, and detailed proposals have been put forward by several of the Salaries Commissions I have mentioned.

I am grateful to the noble Lord opposite for drawing attention to the difficulty of guaranteeing a career to young men and women in a Service which is admittedly bound to have its activities reduced as different Dependencies draw nearer and nearer to self-government, Ceylon has already achieved self-rule, and we are about to relinquish our Mandate for Palestine. But it is well to note that in Ceylon there was no question of the British staff being shown the door. Their numbers have steadily fallen as the Constitution of Ceylon advanced towards self-government, and the few British officers who remained were offered a choice between continuing in the service of the Ceylon Government and retiring on specially favourable terms; they had two years in which to make their choice. As regards Palestine, all expatriate officers have been asked whether they wish to be considered for transfer to similar work in other parts of the Colonial Empire, or whether they prefer to retire on the specially favourable pension terms which have been arranged and guaranteed by His Majesty's Government. A good deal of progress has already been made in considering the placing elsewhere of those officers who desire to continue in the Colonial Service, but of course we have had to be careful not to give those who have already come out preference over those officers who had to remain in Palestine almost up to the last moment.

I think it is clear from these two recent examples that His Majesty's Government recognise the duty which they owe to officers of the Colonial Service to meet their wishes in the event of their being thrown out of employment for reasons beyond their control. But at the same time, I do not think that any prospective candidates for the Colonial Service to-day need unduly concern themselves with the question of security of tenure. For all practical purposes, the appointments offered by Colonial Governments are as permanent as those offered by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom to candidates for the home Civil Service. It is true that the avowed at of our policy is that the local people, should provide their own Civil Service, and that it is the job of the men and women whom we send out to help then to do so. But, as has been emphasised over and over again, it is equally true that the process is bound to be slow. An acorn does not become an oak tree overnight, although, given favourable conditions, its progress is continuous. It is, therefore, likely that, as the process of political evolution develops, recruitment for the Colonial Service from outside the Colonies will gradually diminish. Candidates who are selected to-day may reasonably assume that they would not be asked to join the Service if it were not highly probable that they would enjoy a lifetime of service in one of the great ventures which are part of our British heritage. It is not for me to give an absolute guarantee that every career will be uninterrupted, but how often can such a guarantee be given in any form of employment, in a business or even a profession?

The noble Lord, Lord Milverton, spoke of the risks that must be taken to-day, whatever career a man may choose. I think the noble Lord said very truly that the risks taken by a man who goes into the Colonial Service are pre-eminently worth while on account of the immense importance and value of the work he undertakes. What I can guarantee is the opportunity to play a part in forming and welding together this great family of nations, whose members are at different stages of political and economic development, but each of whom is contributing something to a world-wide association of peoples which we believe to be the biggest single factor making for stability and ordered progress in every part of the habitable globe. I cannot leave this subject without paying my tribute, following the noble Lords who have already paid their tributes, to the exemplary and devoted work of the Colonial Service over the past years. Palestine, of course, is much in our minds to-day. The British staff who have served there—and let me emphasise that these were ordinary men and women from every walk of life in this country—have earned our deep admiration for their loyal service, their devotion to duty and their high standards of conduct and administration, often in the face of calumny and violence. But what of the territories which are not front-page news? In the Far East, as I have recently seen for myself, they are recovering with surprising speed from the ravages of war, and are rehabilitating with remarkable energy and competence the territories recovered from the Japanese.

The noble Lord, Lord Harlech, was no doubt glad to hear that, because he was the last Minister from the Colonial Office to visit that part of the Empire before I went there. Over the vast Continent of Africa, the men and women of the Colonial Service are administering justice, guiding the people in the ways of social progress, educating the young, curing the sick, providing the bases of law and order needed for the development of trade and commerce and gradually building up institutions of democratic self-government on a secure economic foundation. In the West Indies and in the islands of the seven seas it is the same story. Everywhere you will find devoted members of His Majesty's Colonial Service, giving all that they can to promote the happiness and well-being of the peoples whom they serve. We owe them all a deep debt of gratitude for their selfless service. I am sure that those of your Lordships who have not already congratulated them will wish to join with me now in congratulating them on their record of achievement, and in encouraging them to go forward with the good wishes and high esteeem of their fellow countrymen in their great adventure.

I should like to thank the noble Lords who have taken part in this debate for the sound and constructive advice which they have offered. I can assure them that it will receive the close and serious attention of my Department. I should like to thank them also for the encouraging things they have said about the Colonial Service. I can assure them that what has been said will be immensely appreciated by those concerned.

7.18 p.m.

LORD TWEEDSMUIR

My Lords, we have had a very interesting debate this evening. I am only sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Hailey, could not have been present to give your Lordships the benefit of his great fund of experience in these matters. The noble Lord, Lord Milverton, speaks with years of accumulated knowledge on these affairs. I listened to his speech with great interest. I would like to correct a slight misapprehension which arose from my speech. I never intended to give the impression that I personally thought that the Colonial Service was a gold mine that was almost worked out. I said that that impression might appear, and that we must be vigilant to correct it when it does, as we must be vigilant to provide that ample career which the noble Lord mentioned. I have also listened to the noble Lord, Lord Harlech, speaking from a long career, distinguished in Imperial matters. When I advocated security, and harped on the word, I meant to imply not a slavish devotion to it but rather a reasoned measure of it, such as a prudent man might take into account in selecting a career. The noble Lord, Lord Rennell, stressed the point of how important it is to believe in what one does, and that the mere adequacy of material things is not enough. I asked His Majesty's Government certain questions and I received answers in general terms on all of them. There is just one small point. With regard to scholarships, I should like to see some of those scholarships going to the sons of Colonial servants. I am glad to hear that some progress has been made with the courses which were recommended by the Devonshire Report. I have received an assurance upon that point. Upon those terms, I am prepared to withdraw my Motion.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.