Mrs. Castle's Blueprint
Take no notice of those who cry that this is hardly the time for talking about increasing Bri- tish aid. Mrs. Castle is not talking about that at all. She promises no immediate rise; her figure- less White Paper may even conceal a temporary fall. It is rather a reorganisation, a preparation for the moment of take-off--like the National Plan a blueprint for a future that may never come.
The shift from direct grants or loans to technical assistance is surely welcome. Where the Minister's addiction to planning runs away with her is on the old familiar remedy of 'bringing in the experts.' Four hundred new posts in home establishments for people who will serve much of their time abroad, an extra corps of 100 special- ists to be attached to the Ministry, all to be found `within two or three years.'
Let us assume that the. Minister can conjure up these people. Some of them will be in no real sense experts. Some of them will be experts in one field, hopelessly naive and pigheaded in others, well capable of producing blueprints for dams perhaps but useless at living among the people they are sent out to serve. It is the Minister's in- tention to divorce aid from politics, which she cannot of course mean. She could make a better shot at it, however, by tying less assistance to a government ministry. Some of the best ambas- sadors for this country overseas are the boys who go out straight from school under Voluntary Ser- vice Overseas (VSO) and who live among local people at the local level, having no 'connection whatsoever with the British government. Mr. George Edinger has campaigned tirelessly to keep the organisation this way ever since he first mooted the idea in a Spectator article in 1957.
Gradually it has fallen under the wing of the sub-foreign office establishment, the British Coun- cil and now the new Ministry of Overseas De- velopment. The countries which are prepared to admit volunteers have dwindled, the stress is now
on graduates with 'experience' and they go not to the places which may admit no other British body but to the ones with which British relations are just dandy. It is a sad decline which Mrs. Castle has done nothing to remedy.
Previous page
