from foreigners. It is not surprising that an English department, working on these lines, has gained the confidence of the people of the Colonies, and there is equal cause for satisfaction in this country. It is not suggested that the Colonial Office has arrived at perfection. Those who are under the Office, but not in it, would like to see a good many changes, both as to general principles and the handling of details, and they could give excellent reasons in support of their views. To mention one point only, the Office is inclined to err on the side of lenience in dealing with incapable servants. Experience has proved again and again that a man who has failed in one administrative post is not likely to succeed in a higher and more responsible appointment. Without pretending to any attempt at exhaustive criticism, one other point may be mentioned. The machinery of Crown Colony government is based upon a set of cut-and-dried rules, called the Colonial Office Regulations, which cover a wide field and are applied impartially to all Crown Colonies. The rules deal with a variety of subjects, from the keeping of accounts and the conduct of correspondence to the wearing of uniforms and the firing of salutes. In the main they are excellent; but some of them may have been framed in the days of the Plantations, and if the whole code is too sacred for revision, it is at least probable that identical regulations cannot be applied, with perfect success, to Colonies like Cyprus and St Helena, on the one hand, and the Straits and Ceylon on the other. There are differences between Fiji and Trinidad, between Lagos and Malta, British Honduras and Hong-Kong, which cannot be removed by the application of one set of regulations, however great their authorship and antiquity.
If I now leave the methods of Crown Colony administration, and give a word to the results which are obtained by honest, capable, and zealous officers, it is not because the system is perfect, or that I have any desire to argue that some other form of government may not be infinitely preferable. When a Crown Colony
