ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some of the questions which have to be answered in assessing the idea of a policy of preparation— the notion that preparation in this sense explains what has happened and what ought to happen, what policy was like and what it ought to be. The implications of a negative result in assessing both the colonial record and contemporary policy would be considerable indeed. The process of preparation, the instrument of the vision of trusteeship, was meant to deal with the achievement of the change, the answers to the questions. It was the other side of the trusteeship coin. The idea of a preparatory process certainly has not had the field to itself. There have been many alternatives sought or found, and deep opposition. The idea of preparation for the Westminster models itself— not merely of training, and a change of legislative and executive councils—was essentially a postwar idea.
