'The' Colonist Office Conference met this morning. There was full attendance of delegates from the West Indies, the Gold Coast, Malaya, the Bahamas, British Guiana, Honduras, Ceylon, Cyprus, Malta, the Falklands, Fiji, Hong-Newfoundland, Nigeria, Weanda and other British posses-eas coutelled: by tag. Osteah South Africa, India, Rhodesia and North Borneo were represented by observers.
The agenda before the Conference fis a very comprehensive one. Be~ foldes general development and a! ministration, the Conference will deal with broadcasting, civil avia~ tion, films, pensions and provident fonds, Lord Passfield, the Secretary of Btato for the Colonies, in a speech eclating the Conference open, tated that the first session would devoted to discussion of ferent Colonial Office administra tions geattered over the world. An-ether subject for discussion, he said, would be a unified agricultural nounced that a grant would be made from the Colonial Develop ment Fund to defray part of the cost of an investigation into the question of the standardization of railway gauges in the Colonies, Lord Passfield laid stress of the fact that, although the Covenant of the League of Nations ery stall ed the idea that mandated territories were held on behalf of the natives, the British system of colonial adaministratiort had always recognize othe welfare of the native populations was the primary considezation.
Tu the course of responses made by various colonial governors, Sir (William Gowers, Governor of the Uganda Protectorate, expressed the pinion that it wae a happy coinc~ idence that the Conference had opened on the birthday of thy Prince of Wales, "whom.no one had taken a keener interest in Britain's colonial empire.
Presiding at a dinner given in honour of the delegates to the Colonial Office Conference, Lor Passfield announced that the Rajah of Sarawak, Sir Charles Brooke, had loftered £100,000 to be devoted to the object of a connected Colonial Em-Ipire, in recognition of the friendly relations which have always existed Dotween Sarawak and Great Britain.
'Phe Colonial Secretary said the gift had eon gratefully accepted. Mhree-quarters of the amount, hi declared, would' be devoted to assist Jin the education of the children of Colonial Civil Servants in any par: lof the Empire, He added that full Aetails of the scheme, including the allocation of the remainder of the lift, had not yet been worked out, but that it would bring relief to snarly individuals in their grave anxiety. It would also help to in-tease the valuable hereditary elenent in the Colonial Serviees.—Revter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.