Memorandum by Joseph P. Walshe on Department of External Affairs staff requirements
(Copy)

EXTERNAL AFFAIRS¹

HEADQUARTERS AND FOREIGN STAFF

I. HEADQUARTERS:

Present Difficulties

(A) The work of the Department of External Affairs taken as a whole depends primarily on an efficient and sufficient Headquarters Staff. The home Staff judged by its individual members is probably as efficient as that of any External Affairs Staff in the Commonwealth, but its extreme smallness has made it quite impossible to give more than occasional evidence of efficiency in positive results.

Our missions abroad have been left largely to their own devices; our activities in our relations with Great Britain, the Dominions and nations external to the Commonwealth have been almost entirely confined to preventing the establishment of precedents likely to be used against us in the course of our constitutional evolution. The League of Nations has received no more than superficial attention. Apart from this ordinary everyday work of the Department, the frequent and very important International Conferences have found us almost invariably only half prepared and consequently our Representatives rightly felt it unwise to take an active part in the proceedings.

Our relative success at the Imperial Conference was due to the fact that we took the risk of completely dropping all our ordinary work for several weeks before.

At the present moment, besides the work of re-organisation at home and abroad contemplated by the Minister, the following Conferences must occupy the immediate attention of the Headquarters Staff:

1) The Constitutional Conference (consequent on 1926 Imperial Conference)

2) Imperial Conference (at latest January 30)

3) Conference on the Codification of International Law or Disarmament Conference at Geneva

4) Conference with the British for the purpose of making a Convention concerning our cable and wireless rights.

The first two are of sufficient importance and extent to absorb the entire time of double the present Staff of three from now until the Conference takes place.

Basis and Character of the Re-organisation

(B) The foregoing makes it unnecessary to formulate the conclusion that the present Staff of three should remain untouched until the machinery to be evolved on the basis of existing knowledge, precedents, and attitude of mind, has reached a stage at which reasonable general efficiency has been effected. The third officer should be given a very early opportunity of completing his excellent qualifications by a temporary transfer to Geneva for six or eight months in a non-diplomatic capacity. The sum total of accumulated knowledge and experience in the Department has for various reasons become centred to a pre-eminent degree in the Assistant Secretary. The re-organisation of the External Affairs Department is a relatively slow task because new members of the Staff, no matter how well furnished with general educational qualifications or civil service experience, have to acquire a very special attitude of mind before they can render useful service. It would be unreasonable to expect that a strong initial framework for the Department could be completely built up in less than two years. The work of staffing the home Department would proceed by stages. When a legal adviser has been appointed, the present Accountant transferred to External Affairs proper and at least one junior administrative officer added, the remote preparation for a methodical classification of the work could begin. After about six weeks the Staff needs of the Department at home will have been determined to some extent, and suggestions will be made for the addition of not more than three junior administrative officers to the home Staff together with two further officers of the same class for transfer after a short while as junior secretaries to the new legations.

Number required

During the second stage it will be possible to arrive at more or less definite conclusions as to the number of officers required for each section, and the original staffing of the Department should be completed by the end of 1929. The machine would begin to work as a whole in the following year and should have reached the smooth running stage by the end of 1930. The ultimate divisions of the work would probably be based broadly on geographical areas, e.g.:-

though in the evolution of the Department it is not intended to impose any method of dividing the work which does not fit in with the results of our practical experience. Moreover, there will have to be somebody in the Department who has a special knowledge of protocol and ceremonial, orders, decorations and other matters which in the ordinary course come within the scope of our work, and an attempt to over-sectionalize at the beginning would only cramp our freedom to make use of individual talents and aptitudes. It would be, furthermore, difficult for anybody to do really effective work in any section of the Department until he has made his own our exact mental angle in our relations with Great Britain.

Qualifications and Recruitment

(C) Staff would grow in stages as follows:

First Stage - Legal Adviser, at least one junior administrative officer, the present Accountant (Total 3).

Second Stage - Three junior administrative officers for the home Staff, two for very early transfer abroad (Total 5).

Third Stage - It is unlikely that more than five further junior administrative officers would be required for home and foreign staffs (Total 5)

Qualifications for the Vacant Posts

(D) Examination alone is nowhere considered an adequate means of recruitment for foreign departments. Address, national zeal and outlook, stability of purpose, a certain element of detachment, a high degree of moral probity become very much more important factors of selection where the successful candidate will be called upon, in the ordinary course, to represent his country abroad in however minor a capacity. When a candidate has been found suitable on general grounds his academic qualifications (legal knowledge - international and constitutional law; historical knowledge - general and Irish; Linguistic, Irish and French (and the formal intention to acquire at least one other language which should usually be German)) should be tested by examination. The British Selection Board for Foreign Office candidates consists of one Civil Service Commissioner and members of the Foreign Office Staff.

II. STAFF ABROAD

The home Staff of primary importance both in order of time and of work having been dealt with, the question of staffing our posts abroad should be considered separately on its own merits. Three posts are under immediate consideration, Washington, Paris, Berlin.

Washington

(A) Washington requires very particular attention. Until the President's visit² the wealthy Irish-Americans had not shown any special interest in the Saorstát. Clearly they wanted somebody in authority to come and talk to them about Ireland to rouse their latent feelings of sentiment and to let them know that the country of their origin was a respectable European State. Neither the President nor the other Members of the Cabinet have the leisure to make frequent visits to the States and the Minister Plenipotentiary must have the qualities necessary to continue the work begun by the President. The appointee must above all be unmistakably Irish; he must be familiar with Irish history and he must be able at all times to express his feelings about Ireland with much less reserve than we are accustomed to use at home. Otherwise his efforts to interest Irish-Americans in the development of this country are bound to fail. Academically or economically the Irish-American is as remote from us as the Anglo-American. Sentiment is the only channel of approach. Once the Irish-American's interest and sentiment are aroused he will be ready to allow his sentiment to decide for him when he has to choose between an American and an Irish business proposition whether of equal promise or even with the balance in favour of the former.

Our resources in the United States of America remain untapped. A representative with the right qualifications can and should show positive returns within six months. He should, if at all possible, have had independent diplomatic experience in a prominent post, where he has learned the value of steering an even keel between contending parties, and should have given proof of his readiness to follow instructions even though opposed to his own judgment. He should be married, and, lastly, he should have the reputation of being prudent and at all times able to keep out of pitfalls.

Paris

Paris (under which it is proposed to place Geneva and Brussels) requires a very different type of diplomat. Correction of manners, a mastery of the French language, the power of insinuating himself into the most influential government and diplomatic circles, of winning their good esteem for the Saorstát and their sympathy and interest for her League of Nations policy (the majority of the Representatives in Paris take a leading part in their respective delegations to the League).

It should be specifically noted that the French are exceedingly sensitive to the way in which foreigners speak their language and they are inclined to forgive a lot to the foreigner who pays them the compliment of speaking it well. It is a notorious fact that the extraordinary influence of Von Hoesch, the German Ambassador in Paris, in French Government and social circles is due very largely to his perfect knowledge of French.

Berlin

While a knowledge of German is beyond all doubt an exceedingly desirable requisite for the Berlin appointee it does not seem to have the same importance as in France. I saw in a German paper some time ago that thirty-four of the Foreign Ministers Plenipotentiaries in Berlin did not know a word of German. They rely presumably on the fact that all German Foreign Office officials must speak English and French. Our Berlin representative should, if possible, have already lived some time in Berlin. The work will have to be built up from nothing. The line to be taken is not at all so clear as in Paris. If he has to learn German and become acquainted with Berlin as well his first six or twelve months will be wasted as far as the State is concerned.

Geneva

Geneva should become a special training place for officers who have already spent some time in the Department. It is the best international school in the World, with unlimited opportunities. The particular officer doing service there will be under the Minister in Paris in as much as the Paris Minister will be an ordinary delegate at all the conferences held during the year and will have the special task of winning the favour of delegates at these conferences and in Paris. He will accordingly take instructions from the Paris Minister where the details of conferences are concerned, but he will for the purposes of his general work of supplying the Department with information and papers be regarded as directly under the home Department.

Decision requested

To empower the Minister to proceed with the filling of the posts in accordance with the principles set out here and to make arrangements with the Minister for Finance accordingly.