The Colonial Office is a system including five bodies, each revolving, in a sense, on its own axis round the central force of the Secretary of State. These bodies are the Establishment, the Office of the Crown Agents, a nebulous body of agencies connected with the system through the officer holding the appointment of Medical Adviser, the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, and the Imperial Institute.

Under the designation of Establishment I include the permanent staff of the Office. In considering the appropriate functions of the Establishment we must bear in mind that for decades our colonial policy had for its aim to supply the colonies with a constitutional apparatus, to educate them in political methods, and to provide them with an equipment of political leaders and departmental officials with a view to their ultimate separation as independent States. It was of the essence of this policy to reproduce in every colony the spirit and form of our institutions, and, as the principles of the political institutions of the State were held to be inalienable from the principles of the religion of the State, it formed a part of the Colonial Office policy to bring within the sphere of Protestant influence, as a political agency, the people of every race, alike those who had a religion and ethical code of their own and those who had none. Thus it may be said that questions of political administration occupied practically the whole area of activity of the Colonial Office.