§ 73. Mr. McLarenasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will arrange to publish the annual and biennial reports on Crown Colonies within twelve months of the end of the period reported upon, in order that such reports may be of contemporary interest.
§ Mr. Iain MacleodEvery effort is made to publish these reports as soon as possible after the year to which they refer. We are dependent, of course, on Colonial Governments for the early dispatch of their reports to the United Kingdom.
More than half the reports in any one year are printed locally and not in this country, and given the pressure on staff overseas and on local printing facilities and the time taken to ship reports to the United Kingdom, I think Governments do as well as can reasonably be expected. I would be loth to interfere with these arrangements because there is also considerable pressure on printing facilities in the United Kingdom.