28 MAY 1892, Page 3

All who understand how the work of administering this Empire

is carried on, have heard with regret of the retirement of Sir Robert Herbert from the Permanent Under-Secretary- ship of the Colonies. A successful student at Oxford, and for five years Premier in Queensland, he has been for twenty-one years the real "Mr. Mother-country "of our Colonial dominion, and has settled more thorny questions and removed more serious difficulties than the majority of Ministers of State.- No Colony, however excited, has ever quarrelled with Sir Robert. He was entertained on Thursday at a great banquet by the Royal Colonial Institute, and in his speech of acknow- ledgment, declared that Great Britain had now possession of "almost every desirable portion of the planet." He looked forward to federation in all the great Colonies, and had no doubt of the ultimate success of the great governing Companies which now rule British Borneo and British East Africa. Rather to our surprise, for Sir Robert has shown full comprehension of the Colonial temper, he has hopes of Imperial Federation, and that, too, "on a sound fiscal basis." It is possible, however, that his idea of a sound fiscal basis differs widely from that of economists, and that he thinks preferential dealing with the Colonies still a possibility. Sir Robert, who was born in 1831, retires early from official work ; but it is rumoured that he may be made a Peer, and again utilised as a responsible administrator.