Abstract
THE report of the Right Hon. W. G. A. Ormsby-Gore, M.P., Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, on his visit to Malaya, Ceylon, and the Dutch Colony of Java during the year 1928, was presented to Parliament last week. This is the fourth report on Colonial development based on personal tours of the non-self-governing dependencies of the Crown for which Mr. Ormsby-Gore has been partly or wholly responsible. In 1922 he accompanied Mr. Edward Wood (now Lord Irwin) to the British West Indies and British Guiana. In 1924, Mr. J. H. Thomas (then Colonial Secretary) appointed him chairman of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry which visited East and Central Africa. Two years later he toured the four British Colonies in West Africa. Reports on each of these tours were presented to Parliament. Each of them is a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the countries coming within the scope of his inquiries. Considered as a whole, they constitute an almost complete summary of the facts related to the geography, history, economic development and administration of most of the countries for which Great Britain has assumed responsibility but to which it has not yet granted complete self-government. The common characteristic of the four reports is the emphasis laid upon the education, public health, and scientific and technical services as factors in the development of the resources of the tropics. Hitherto, there has been a tendency on the part of local governments to regard such services as luxuries to be afforded only in times of their prosperity. This fallacy is dealt with adequately. The scientific and technical services are shown to be the basis of economic advance. The importance of extending the public health services to prevent the enormous wastage of life and loss of physical efficiency of the peoples of the tropics is stressed, but above all it is shown that the work of such services will be largely abortive unless our subject races can appreciate what is being done and can co-operate with us. Hence it is imperative to build up greatly improved education services throughout the colonial empire.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
News and Views. Nature 122, 1004–1007 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/1221004a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1221004a0