The Official History of Colonial Development: Volume 1 The Origins of British Aid Policy, 1924–1945

It was assisted in the second place by the privileged access to the files of the Colonial Office in order to prepare a short history of the origins and nature of British aid to developing countries, which was published by the Overseas Development Institute in 1964 under the title of Colonial Development. In the third place, there were study-visits to the New Commonwealth. In 1964 a Houblon-Norman award enabled me to renew my acquaintance with the West Indies, beginning with Bermuda and the Bahamas, in order to study banking developments and aid problems. A Hayter grant in 1966 and a Leverhulme award in 1969 enabled me to become acquainted with the economies and economic problems of East and Central Africa, Ethiopia and Egypt. In particular, I studied the working of joint ventures between local and expatriate interests, including among the former the local development corporations and among the latter both the Commonwealth Development Corporation and the Commonwealth Development Finance Company. I was fortunate to meet Governors, Ministers and officials, Governors of Central Banks, staffs of local development corporations, banks and businesses of many kinds, economists in the IX x PREFACE Universities and Research Institutes, and the Regional Controllers and staffs of the CDC, who gave me the benefit of their experience. The invitation to prepare a full-scale study of Colonial Development in the new Peacetime Series of Official Histories was exciting and challenging. Because of the sheer mass of official documentation made available, it was also daunting. Thus, for one fairly self-contained episode, namely the East African Groundnuts Project over the years 1946-5 I, when it was the responsibility of the Ministry of Food, between 600 and 700 files were 'put by' by that Ministry, while the Lord President's Office, the Cabinet Office, the Treasury, the Foreign Office, the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Colonial Office added an assortment of complementary files. In order to decide on a firm outline for the whole History, I began by reading through the Cabinet Conclusions for the years 1935-65, so that the topics which engaged the attention of Ministers in the broad field of Colonial Development were known in the context of the concerns and decisions of the time. Topics were then followed, in turn, through Cabinet Committees to departmental files, where internal and inter-departmental discussions led up to Briefs for Ministers. In the Treasury, the Chancellor of the Exchequer customarily awaited on an agreed draft from his senior officials before he was prepared to discuss even with his Cabinet colleagues. Once Ministers have come to their decisions, matters are returned to officials for implementation. The more general the decision -and Cabinet decisions are necessarily often in somewhat general terms -the more discretion there is in implementation. Officials might even feel justified in providing favoured treatment in cases where Ministers deny any preference, as happened over the allocations to the Overseas Food Corporation discussed in Volume 2, Chapter 5, Section xii. Without the ready assistance of experienced records officers, the whole operation would have been imperilled. It is a pleasure to thank those in the Departments concerned, namely the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Cabinet Office, the Treasury, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and the Ministry of Overseas Development. Many others, particularly in the Historical Section of the Cabinet Office, did much over the years to facilitate the study and deserve my gratitude. I have acknowledged at the appropriate places in the text my indebtedness to those with whom I discussed while the study was being prepared. In the course of his announcement of the Peacetime Series (H. ofC. Front Matter....Pages i-xxx Colonial Trade Policy, 1929–1939....Pages 1-13 The Colonial Question, 1935–1939....Pages 14-22 Disturbances in the Colonies, 1935–1938....Pages 23-27 The Intellectual Ferment of the 1930s....Pages 28-34 Policy and Experience in the 1920S....Pages 35-43 Policy and Experience in the 1930s....Pages 44-63 Preparatory Discussions in the Colonial Office, 1938–1939....Pages 64-71 The Impact of War....Pages 72-75 The Report of the West India Royal Commission....Pages 76-79 The Colonial Development and Welfare Act, 1940....Pages 80-123 The CD & W Act and Colonial Trade Unions....Pages 124-136 The Development and Welfare Organisation in the West Indies....Pages 137-156 The Anglo-American Caribbean Commission....Pages 157-180 The Colonial Economic Advisory Committee....Pages 181-197 The Colonial Development and Welfare Act, 1945....Pages 198-207 Development Planning to 1945....Pages 208-241 Back Matter....Pages 242-253 v. 1. The origins of British aid policy, 1924-1945. v. 2. Developing British colonial resources, 1945-1951. v. 3. A reassessment of British aid policy, 1951-1965. v. 4. Changes in British aid policy, 1951-1970. v. 5. Guidance towards self-government in British colonies, 1941-1971.