2 PARIS, 1937: COLONIAL QUESTIONS AND PEACE 199limited powers of the Permanent Mandates Commission, it was ‘unde-
niable that it had exercised considerable influence upon colonial admin-
istration, not merely in the mandated areas, but also in the colonies
proper.’^390 As further testimony to the influence of Article 22 beyond
the confines of the mandatory regime, one might note Moresco’s obser-
vation that since 1918 there had been ‘increasing recognition of the
right to independence of colonies other than Mandated territories’.^391 As
welcome as they no doubt thought this development was, figures such
as Wright and Schrieke nonetheless urged the extension of the mandate
system such that its general principles would formally apply to all subject
peoples. The proposal to extend the mandate system so that it covered
all non-self-governing territories, however, was dismissed by Labouret
who advised the conference that ‘it was doubtful that the guardian States
would ever permit foreign officials to assume a position of authority and
thus to receive by delegation a part of the national sovereignty.’^392
The advent of Article 22 was not the only factor that was cited at the
conference in order to explain the changed attitude towards colonies. In
the view of some, the change attitude in regard to colonies was an unin-
tended effect of the colonial propaganda of certain dissatisfied states and,
one might add, the political arguments of those, most of them British,
who felt there was little to choose between British or French colonial
administration and a prospective German colonial administration. The
German colonial propaganda assisted by the rhetoric regarding colonial
administration on the part of those who called for justice for Germany,
gave rise to a situation in which there was an even greater felt-need
on the part of the colonial powers to defend their colonial policy and
along lines that were more deferential to the principle of trusteeship
than might otherwise have been the case. Amidst a rhetorical environ-
ment rich with suggestions of moral equivalence, there was a felt-need
to demonstrate why, for example, British colonialism was to be pre-
ferred to that of National Socialist colonialism. Thomas Drummond
Shiels, a Scottish Labour parliamentarian and a former under-secretary
of state for the colonies, was secretary of the British Hygiene Council.
He was one of the British experts mentioned by Staley in his article on
(^390) Ibid., 446, 463.
(^391) Moresco, Colonial Questions and Peace, 44–5.
(^392) Ibid., 459, 464, 474.