It seems to be generally accepted that the British Council
is doing a good piece of work. It seems to be less generally realised that it could do its work much better if it could be reasonably certain of adequate finance. During the current year its budget was subjected to a cut of more than £400,000 ; during the coming year an additional cut of more than £600,000 is threatened. In both years rising costs at home and abroad meant that the Council needed an increased budget if it was to go on doing as much as it had been. If its budget is to be smaller and not bigger it will have to give up a great deal of its work, and since the cut is a large one, .this can only be done by withdrawing completely from a number of countries. This would be little less than a tragedy. In work of this sort consistency is of the greatest importance ; it is not possible to set up institutes abroad in years when the Treastiry is feeling generous and withdraw them in years when the Treasury is feeling parsimonious. Yet this apparently is the basis on which the Council is expected to work. As things are, the Council staff have virtually no security of tenure, and nobody can be expected to produce his best if he is unsure, not only of whether he himself is going to be still employed next year, but whether the work which he has been trying to build up is not going to be swept away by a stroke of the pen when the next financial year cennes round. And yet the amount at stake is by modern standards a very small one--only the cost of 30,000 Gambian eggs.
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