Group II.-Agricultural Officers, i.e., Administrative or District Officers.

Group III.-Curators of Botanic Gardens, Plantation Superintendents, and other appointments.

29. In the Colonial agricultural departments, as at present constituted, there are roughly 80 appointments in Group I, 150 in Group II, and 70 in Group III.

In addition, there are about half a dozen officers detailed to advise on special crops, such as flax, coffee, &c., who may be classified generally with Group I.

We understood that difficulty arose only with regard to the supply of candidates for Groups I and II, and we did not therefore investigate the conditions surrounding appointments in Group III. We take this opportunity, however, of suggesting that it may be considered desirable in special cases to afford facilities of the nature recommended in paragraph 44 of this report to candidates for appointments in this Group.

31. With regard to Groups I and II, it was clear from the evidence that while difficulty had been encountered in filling satisfactorily appointments in both groups, appointments in the former Group were less difficult to fill than those in the latter.

32. These difficulties may be briefly summarised as follows:

(a) The number of men required has considerably increased; the demand for Group II for the period 1919 to 1924 being three times that for the period 1909-14 (Appendix IV, 2 (a)).

(b) Higher qualifications, both personal and academic, areand rightly-now demanded than was usually the case before the war (Appendix IV, 2 (c)).

(c) The cost of education has increased and the resources of parents have diminished. In consequence few candidates appear able to undergo more than the minimum training necessary to secure employment, while some otherwise suitable candidates drift off into other employment before they are of sufficient age to come up for consideration for the Colonial Services. The salaries offered by Colonial agricultural departments are hardly sufficient to attract promising men who have once taken up employment elsewhere. Such men are therefore lost to the Colonial Services for good.

(d) The factors above mentioned have not only deterred many possible recruits from joining the Service, but have adversely affected the initial usefulness of many officers who have been appointed. Some of them have been hardly mature enough for their responsibilities. Few are sufficiently trained in economics. Officers in Group I are in many cases handicapped by not having obtained in this country a sufficient general knowledge of the fundamentals of agriculture. It is, moreover, exceptional for any newly-appointed officer to possess any previous acquaintance either with tropical conditions or with tropical crops. In short, with certain notable exceptions, the majority of recruits are, at the outset of their official careers, unfairly handicapped by being insufficiently

equipped scientifically for the demands which are pressing with increasing severity on the staffs of Colonial agricultural departments. In consequence, many junior officers are to a great extent "passengers for the first year, or even two years, of their service, and during this period the Colony does not obtain from them the value of their salaries. They are liable, through no fault of their own, to make elementary mistakes which may seriously prejudice them in the eyes of local planters and others, to whom it is an important part of their duties to give advice. Moreover, experienced officers have to be detailed to give them instruction. In large departments this may not be a very serious matter; but where the agricultural department is small, as is the case in numerous Colonies, a severe drain on its resources may thereby be involved.

(e) The openings for British officers in the better-known agricultural services of India and Egypt have recently been greatly restricted. It might have been thought that this would have set free a number of candidates for service in the Colonies, and it is probably true that this has happened in a few cases. But we have received evidence to the effect that the heavy reductions which have recently been effected in the European personnel of these two countries have seriously .diminished the number of students. preparing themselves for careers of this nature, and that, on balance, recruitment for the Colonial Services has been adversely affected.

(f) The supply of candidates for any service for which specialised training over a number of years is essential must inevitably be hampered when the demand is uneven and uncertain. Both conditions have most seriously affected recruitment for the Colonial agricultural departments during the last six years. Economic conditions have led to a succession of boom and slump, expansion and retrenchment, as can be seen from the following table :

A boom encourages a larger number of men to take up appropriate lines of study. If a slump follows, a number of these find themselves without openings and with their specialised training probably wasted. The consequence is that until confidence can be restored, students will tend to take up other subjects; and, if a boom follows, trained men will not be available to fill the vacancies. This has been markedly the case of recent years in the kindred subject of forestry, and evidence shows that the agricultural services have also suffered severely from the same cause.

It may be hoped that the Colonies are now entering on a period of more stable economic conditions, and that the fluctuations in recruitment will be considerably less marked. At the same time it must be remembered that, although transfers between them are

of fairly frequent occurrence, the agricultural service of each Colony is separate and, in many cases, small. Recruitment takes place not for a Colonial agricultural service--such a service does not in fact exist-but for the agricultural department in each individual Colony, and must be regulated by their individual needs at the time.

33. In Appendix V will be found a copy of a Circular despatch which, at the request of our Chairman, was sent to all Colonial Governments on the 10th September, 1924. From the replies received it appears impossible for them to forecast accurately their demands in men sufficiently far ahead to ensure that an adequate number of students will take up appropriate lines of study to fit themselves to supply these demands. The adverse affect of this uncertainty has been emphasised by the witnesses from the training centres in this country. We consider that it is of prime importance and that it must be overcome. We shall return to this point later in our report.

Remedial Measures Already Taken.

34. It is clear to us that the Colonial Office has kept a close watch on events and has made considerable efforts to combat the adverse influences at work (see Appendix IV, paragraphs 3 and 4).

The salaries of all Colonial agricultural officers were carefully considered and revised by the "Committee on the Staffing of the Agricultural Departments in the Colonies" in 1920, and a general and considerable improvement in this respect was carried through.

Information as to the careers provided by Colonial agricultural departments was made available in a greatly improved form and was widely circulated amongst the public schools, Universities, Agricultural Colleges, &c. The various sources of supply have also been kept fully posted as to openings as they have occurred; but for the reasons given in paragraph 33 it has often been impossible to give such notice as far in advance as would have been desirable.

The new Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, from which important results may be expected, has been set up in Trinidad, and correspondence with various Colonial Governments as to how they could best make use of its courses was in progress when your Committee was set up.

35. The Colonial Office had reason to hope that, when the training centres had recovered from the dislocation caused by the war, these improvements would lead to an adequate supply of trained candidates. Unfortunately, though good results have undoubtedly been obtained by their efforts, the result has fallen far short of expectations, and now, six years after the Armistice, the position is still unsatisfactory.

We think it right to state here that, in our opinion, no blame attaches to the recruiting staff of the Colonial Office. On the contrary we are impressed by the sound judgment and discrimination shown in the use made of the material available and by the efforts which they have made, with the resources at their disposal, to improve the supply of candidates.

*See Cmd. 730.

37. The experience of the Colonial Office has been borne out by that of the Empire Cotton Growing Corporation and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, two large recruiting bodies for service abroad and at home respectively. In order to attract suitable candidates the Empire Cotton Growing Corporation have found it necessary to adopt a system of studentships under which agricultural students are given the opportunity to undergo a course of post-graduate training at various institutions, commonly including a period at the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, Trinidad. Even for appointments at home, which are usually easier to fill than those involving service abroad, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, faced with a similar shortage, have been compelled to offer a number of post-graduate scholarships.

38. After careful investigation we have come to the definite conclusion that a sufficient number of men of the right personal stamp, and willing to serve in the tropics, are not at present undergoing appropriate training to fit themselves for service in the Colonial agricultural departments.

In short, the supply from which to select does not exist and must be created.

The Objective to be Aimed at.

39. We consider that steps should be taken to ensure an annual supply of recruits, who attain a thoroughly satisfactory standard in respect both of personal qualifications and of technical training, sufficient to cover the normal requirements of the agricultural departments.

40. It may be convenient here to define briefly what standard should be set.

We have placed personal qualifications first, because we consider them to be of vital importance. The principal considerations which have influenced us in coming to this conclusion are as follows:

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41. In the first place, it is generally agreed that tropical conditions of life expose European officials to stresses that do not operate to the same extent in a temperate climate. The fundamental qualification for such an official is mens sana in corpore sano. must, if possible, not only start fit, but be kept fit; in mind, nerves and body. This is not merely a matter of medically rejecting the physically unfit. It is necessary also to try to select men whose temperament, tastes and habits will help them.

Experience shows that for this purpose men usually do best if they are of a confident, cheerful and equable temperament; not easily exasperated or depressed; energetic and patient; and, when possible, gifted with a sense of humour. They should be of active bodily habits, with a taste for games, sport, natural history or other pursuits, such as will enable them to take regular hard exercise with pleasure. Without hard exercise men in hot countries rapidly lose their health, and often their mental serenity. The result is loss of efficiency and, in some cases, a tragic disaster.

So much we think will meet with ready agreement from anyone who knows the conditions under which these men must live and work. But we wish to go further. We attach great importance to the possession of a strong and disciplined character, powers of initiative and self-reliance, imagination and sympathy, a keen sense of justice, observation and tact in dealing with colleagues and subordinates; good presence, address and manners.

It must be remembered that agricultural officers have to deal with their colleagues in other branches of the administration, and, in certain Colonies, with European settlers, or with white residents of old standing in the Colony. To be fully efficient their opinions on their own subject must carry full weight with men who often cannot appreciate the more technical aspects of the question under discussion. It will greatly assist them to command the necessary confidence, if they are, in other respects at any rate, the equals of the men with whom they are dealing.

Still more important do we consider personality to be when the officer has to advise and instruct native chiefs and headmen. For natives, as is well known, have exceptional powers of intuitive observation. Like children, they instinctively "size up" the man they are dealing with; and this they do very quickly, and generally with accuracy. White officers of the right stamp win their confidence to a remarkable extent; but the best technical advice is likely to be thrown away if they do not regard the giver of it asto quote the words of a West African chieftain on this very pointa chief in his own country."

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For these reasons we consider it most important to select candidates of a good personal stamp for both classes of appointments, and particularly so for the post in Group II, where the official's duties bring him into close personal contact with planters, settlers and especially in tropical Africa-with the natives themselves. In this view we have the emphatic support of witnesses with first-hand experience of the Colonial agricultural departments.

We are aware that both you and your predecessors have paid particular attention to this aspect of recruitment, so far as the available material permitted. We emphatically endorse that policy and recommend that it be maintained.

42. Later in our report we deal at length with the type of training we regard as essential for officers in Groups I and II respectively. We will confine ourselves here to the broad statement that candidates should possess a good general education likely to give them a breadth of outlook and a sense of proportion; that in the case of research or specialist officers an Honours Degree in Pure Science, of a standard equivalent to Part II of the Cambridge Tripos, provides, in our opinion, the only sure foundation; and that candidates for appointment as administrative or district officers, besides possessing an agricultural degree or a diploma of one of the Universities or Agricultural Colleges, must acquire a knowledge of economics, administrative procedure, experimental work and plant breeding. Above all, candidates for both classes of appointments must be given the opportunity before assuming their