RESEARCH BUREAUX

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 126, 24 November 1926, Page 9

RESEARCH BUREAUX

ESTABLISHMENT RECOMMENDED,

(United Press Association.—Copyright.) LONDON, 22nd November. The report of the Research SubCommittee of the Imperial Conference emphasises the value of consultation and co-operation between the various portions of the Empire, and recommends, further, the establishment of bureaux on the lines of the existing Bureaux of Entomology and Tropical Medicine. The need for the establishing of such would be best considered by the special Inter-Empire Conference, as already arranged for 1927, for the study of Imperial agricultural research. Similar bureaux might also be established on behalf of other practical arts, sach as hoiti«Bttn»e, mining, ntannfacjtaring, aad-isdßrtiy. Ei-we would be :

strictly specialised bureaux, but it would also be necessary to have organisations which act as clearing houses for the dissemination of scientific and technical information, somewhat analogous to the present Imperial Institute. DIRECT COMMUNICATION. The experience of three British research departments, namely, Agriculture, Medicine, and Science, show the urgent need of direct communication between them and between eorersponding organisations elsewhere in the Empire. There had been many instances proving that work done on parallel lines in different parts of the Empire, dealing with different local conditions, had. led to important results. While it was true that much valuable information was thus interchanged, the present machinery was imperfect. Every official representative of each organisation in one part of the Empire should have an opposite number in each of the other parts of the Empire for.the direct exchange of information. The report draws attention to the serious shortage of suitable candidates for scientific services supported by the Governments. Scientific officers must be of the highest class and given the best training. Salaries and other inducements must be adequate to atfraet the best men. If it is urged that finaricial stringency renders such a policy unwise, the report points out, the poorer any country is the greater its need to develop its scientific resources. The British Empire's enormous potential resources cannot be fully developed without the aid of science. Germany in the nineteenth century provided a' dassie instance of the way in which a comparatively poor country can by organised scientific research " immensely increase its wealth and overhaul its neighbours possessing greater natural advantages. The committee states that the importance of having upon the staffs of research institutions men with experience in different parts of the Empire can hardly be exaggerated. It is of opinion that the Press could play a great part in bringing home to the public the importance of science to the Empire and the career it offers. The report applauds the proposal to hold an agricultural research conference in London in 1927, and urges that the various Governments should give it the fullest possible support. CHAIN OF STATIONS. The report embodies a resolution noting with satisfaction the encouragement of scientific research into the problems of Empire agriculture, and particularly approves the project of a chain of research stations in tropical and sub-tropiual portions of the Empire. It points out that the Empire Marketing Board had made considerable grants for research work in connection with the problems, of production and transport, and also extended asistanee beyond foodstuffs. The board had made it clear that it conceives its task to be to bring scientific problems before the appropriate authorities. The committee suggests that when the board recommends a grant or the refusal of a grant it should attach fully qualified reports thereon. The committee approves the steps taken to reorganise the Imperial Institute according to the recommendations of the Economic Conference of 1923. The Earl .of Balfour contributes an introduction to the report, in which he trusts that the outcome of the Conference will be to encourage the Empire's States to view sympathetically tiiesc suggestions.