340 THE EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT [PART IT 
§ 6. Ture HigH COMMISSIONERS AND AGENTS-GENERAL 
A curious and now important part of the Dominion 
Government consists in their representation in London. The 
Agents-General had in the main a business origin : the Crown 
Colonies no less than the other Colonies used to keep resident 
agents in London, often, of course, only slightly connected 
with the Colony, to transact all manner of business for them. 
Oradually the position of these ministers became more 
political and less commercial, and men of higher status were 
appointed to the posts. One of the foremost in pressing 
this question of status was Sir J. Vogel, Agent-General for 
New Zealand, who wrote an amusingly solemn dispatch in 
February 12, 1879,! to the New Zealand Government, setting 
out that the term Agent-General was apt to lead to misunder- 
standings : that an Agent-General for Victoria had found 
that when he ordered the term to be inscribed on some 
blinds the person entrusted with the duty turned it into 
General Agent, and the truth was that the agency was 
regarded as a general agency of a most enlarged description 
of a commercial character. He pressed for the recognition 
of the term minister resident, and that they should have 
a defined precedence and status, and be in all respects like 
ambassadors, subject to the fact that the Colonies were 
parts of the Empire. It was many years until New Zealand 
changed the style of her representative, not until 1905, when 
the term High Commissioner was adopted. But in the case 
of Canada the change had been made much earlier : on the 
occasion of the appointment of Sir Alexander Galt in 1879 
they nominated him to act as minister resident in London, 
and the term High Commissioner was finally resolved upon 
as suitable? after consultation with the Imperial Government. 
At the same time no attempt was made to rank the High 
Commissioners among the official hierarchy or to place 
them with ambassadors, and the full recognition of their 
claims to be deemed representatives of the Dominions 
was hardly accorded until the arrival of Sir George Reid in 
. New Zealand Parl, Pap., 1879, Sess, 2, D. 3, * Parl. Pap., C. 2594,