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The Executive. 59. The financial and executive powers of tie Department should be in the hands of a permanent secretary with the necessary subordinate staff. The secretary of the Department should also be the secretary to tho Advisory Council and act as the liaison officer between that body and the Prime Minister. It is essential that he should be a man of high administrative capacity and experience, and if he also has scientific qualifications so much the better. But administrative powers are the first necessity. As he will necessarily furnish the driving-force for a new and difficult undertaking, he should also be a man in the prime of life ; and, since the success of the new Department will largely depend upon the degree to which it can secure the sympathy and. co-operation of other Departments, he should be well endowed with judgment and tact. His status in the Service and his remuneration should be comparable with those of other heads of Departments. 60. The secretarial staff of the Department would be used, among other purposes, for supplying secretaries to the various supervisory committees to be appointed under the Department and for taking the necessary executive action. The executive staff of any laboratories, services, or institutes of the Department established or transferred under the scheme outlined above would be officers of the Department for the purpose. The organization of the Department is represented diagrammatically in Appendix B. Functions of the Department. 61. The functions of the Department, should be defined, I suggest, in broad terms, which might be further defined, as necessity arises, by Order in Council. The following definition is suggested : — (i.) To encourage scientific research and to organize its application to the primary and secondary industries. (ii.) To maintain and administer — (a.) The Geological Survey. (b.) The Magnetic Survey. (c.) The Meteorological Office. (id.) The Hector Observatory. (e.) The Samoan Scientific Service. (/.) A Laboratory for Standards and Tests, to include the present Dominion Laboratory (Government Analyst's Department), the laboratory of the Public Works Department and Main Highways Board, the testing laboratories of the Railway Department, and such local provision for similar work as may be thought desirable. (g.) Such other State laboratories as may hereafter be transferred to it. (h.) Such special institutes as may hereafter be established by Government for research or for the application of science to the primary or secondary industries. (iii.) To advise Government on scientific policy. (iv.) To hold and administer land and other property (whether under trust or not) for the promotion of scientific or industrial research. Finance. 62. It is very difficult to form an estimate of the cost of the proposed Department to the Exchequer. If it is successful and wins the confidence of the people its expenditure will undoubtedly grow, and the growth will be justified. At first, however, its work will largely consist in the review and co-ordination of already existing expenditure on the State laboratories and services enumerated in (ii) (a) to (/) above and in making careful plans for the developments recommended in this report. In its first year of existence the cost to the State, additional to the expenditure already sanctioned, should not, I think, exceed £7,000, exclusive of office accommodation, furniture, stationery, routine printing, and the like. As its plans develop, however, with the sanction of the Government, the expenditure is certain to expand, though a large part of the increase will bring with it corresponding contributions from the industries concerned. VIII. Miscellaneous Recommendations. Records Section. 63. The central authority I recommend should be established will itself be responsible for the collection of a wide range of scientific papers and reports by the various establishments and organizations under its aegis. These papers and reports should include those prepared by scientific workers employed by co-operative bodies aided by the central authority, whether, like that at Hawera, they are connected with a primary industry, or with a secondary industry under one or other of the methods of cooperation proposed in paragraph 35. It should be a condition of all grants in aid of a research organization that all results are sent at once to the central authority. A small section of the headquarters office should be devoted to the collation and abstracting of these results, and, in so far as they are not confidential to a particular industry or group of manufacturers, the results should be circulated at regular intervals, not only to the research bodies connected with the Department but to the corresponding central authorities at Home and in other Dominions, in the same way as monthly abstracts from my Department are sent to the Dominion. This arrangement will help to keep the Empire informed of the progress of scientific work in each of its parts. It will also be of great help and assistance to the industries that are taking an active part in the work.

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