ABSTRACT
A SHORT time ago a Committee was appointed, under the chairmanship of Sir Warren Fisher,1 to report on the “System of Appointment in the Colonial O ce and the Colonial Services”; its report, which has been recently issued, merits careful consideration. In an opening section attention is directed to the extraordinary diversity of the territories administered by the Colonial O ce, covering an area of two million square miles, practically all within the tropics, with a population of nearly y millions. Although o en alluded to as the ‘Colonial Service’, in e ect there is no such thing, as the Colonial Secretary has to deal with the a airs of more than y distinct governments, ruling territories in size from as large as Central Europe down to remote island groups; conditions of life, material equipment, and economic factors being entirely dissimilar.
