COLONIAL GOVERNORSHIPS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1410, 10 April 1912, Page 5

COLONIAL GOVERNORSHIPS.

OUTSIDE APPOINTMENTS . RESENTED. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright London, April 8. The appointment of Governors of Crown Colonies without reference to the Colonial Office is creating dismay in the service. The selection of an army officer to govern Mauritius and the appointment of an outsider as Governor of HongKong aro instanced. In the House of Lords on February 27 Lord Selborne asked the Under-Secretary for the Colonies to explain the meaning of Colonel Seely's statement in July . last and Mr. Harcourt's statement in November that "a governorship lies quite outside of the ordinary course of- promotion in the colonial service," and moved for papers. He did not contend that the Government should never make appointments outside tho colonial service, but to suggest to n. man who had entered the Civil Service that a Governorship lay outside the promotion to which lie might look seemed to him a serious condition of affairk. The statements to which ho had referred had produced absolute dismay in "the"Eastern , -Colonial 'Civil Rer- , vice. There was an idea thnt the policy of the Colonial Office was to discourage merit in the colonial service. It should be the exception to go outsido tho Civil Service for men to fill the dffico of Governors.

Lord Emtnott (Under-Secretary) paid no change had been made, and no change would be made, in the direction of seeking Governors from outside instead of those who were already members of tho colonial service when' Governorships were vacant. Instead of outside appointments becoming numerous thej were les3 numerous in recent years.