Lord Reith Sweeps Clean The annual report of the Colonial
Development Corporation, the first to be produced under Lord Reith's chairmanship. has an importance which extends far beyond the fifty miscellaneous schemes, with a sanctioned capital of some £31,000,000, with which it deals. In fact, its importance extends well outside the field of colonial development. It makes an impact—which many Ministers and officials must have felt, even if the public has not—on the whole question of public enterprise. It is brief, direct and ruthless. It reports on each of the fifty existing schemes, ranging from the £3,750,000 loan to the Malaya Central Electricity Board (which is yielding interest) to the £10,000 scheme for experimental river farms in the Gambia (which, like the larger egg scheme, have failed). Each short repot ends with an assessment of the future prospects, and the next year will provide a test of those assessments, as well as of the schemes themselves—a crucial te$,for Lord Reith and his methods. If it is passed successfully this report may well become historic. It stands out from the whole indigestible mass of the reports of public undertakings in the past six years, simply because it goes straight to the point, disguises nothing, makes no excuses, spares nobody and reflects a genuine spirit of enterprise. Every- body knows Lord Reith is a man of rigid principle and great energy, but everybody—including Lord Reith himself—must suspect that he can handle even bigger undertakings than the Colonial Development Corporation, with its capital of £100,000,000 and its limited influence on the vast spaces and populations of the colonies. Why should not this be only the first of a series of large-scale cleaning-up operations, to be undertaken by the most formidable of new brooms? Much good could come of the spirit which informs this collection of staccato sentences, combining with curiously potent effect the advice of Plain Words with the styles of Lord Beaverbrook and Mr. Jingle, and ending. "There are many difficulties to be met, risks to be run. The Corporation realises its responsibility and its oppor- tunity ; will do its best."
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