ABSTRACT
In the course of his tenure of office–brief or long, as the case may be–the Secretary of State for the Colonies has to do and decide many and various things. Not a few of them are dull. Many of them, if far from dull, have a touch of oppressiveness by reason of their weight and complexity, to say nothing of the difficulty of estimating their political repercussions–one of the most popular of which might be the downfall of the Minister himself. But in his life there are some high light; some moments of pure delight. And this moment of opening the Oxford Summer School on Colonial Administration is one of them. Although it is an occasion which is attended by no ministerial anxiety, it is of peculiar importance. Indeed, I can hardly imagine a project more fruitful than this which brings together Civil Servants from every corner of the Colonial Empire, and also from the Sudan 2 and Burma, 3 for the purpose of discussing their common, allied, and separate problems and of listening to various relevant pronouncements by authorities of unquestioned eminence. Great and powerful as may be the Secretary of State, this is a thing that he could not do. Not all the resources at my disposal would enable me to create either a forum or surroundings even remotely comparable with those in which you are going to spend the next ten days. In Whitehall we have buildings of massive dignity; but they can scarcely call forth that inspiration which is one of the magic powers of the steeples and domes and towers of Oxford. Nor, perhaps, can we produce in our echoing halls and corridors that urge to quiet, pure, intellectual effort which haunts, ghostlike, every nook and cranny of this famous, lovely university city. That is why, 274knowing the limitations of my own office and its environment, I welcome the help which Oxford can give in a sphere in which she is supreme.
