APPENDIX 5 COMMITTEE ON METHODS OF ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION Sub-Committee on Procedure REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON EXISTING MACHINERY FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION MEMBERS Canada—Mr. N. A. Robertson United Kingdom—Mr. G. G. Whiskard Australia—Mr. F. L. McDougall Union of South Africa—Mr. J. A. Dimond India —Mr. H. A. F. Lindsay 1. The Committee was appointed for the purpose of presenting in as brief but complete a form as possible a picture of the organs of economic co-operation at present existing within the Empire. For the purpose of their enquiry, they have confined themselves to official organizations other than those which are purely national in character—that is to say, to organizations reporting to one or more Governments of the Commonwealth, and/or performing functions of definite interest to more than one Government of the Commonwealth. 2. The following is believed to be an exhaustive list of such organizations: - (i) The Imperial Economic Committee. (ii) The Imperial Shipping Committee. ' (iii) The Empire Marketing Board. (iv) The Executive Council of the Imperial Agricultural Bureaux. (v) The Imperial Institute. (vi) The Imperial Institute of Entomology. (vii) The Imperial Mycological Institute. _ (viii) The Imperial Communications Advisory Committee. (ix) The Mechanical Transport Council. (x) The Imperial Forestry Institute. (xi) The Empire Timbers Committee. Mention may also conveniently be made of the following bodies:— The Bureau of Hygiene and Tropical Diseases, which, though scarcely within the economic field proper, derives part of its income from Empire Governments; The Wool Industries Research Association, towards which certain Governments individually contribute; The Empire Cotton Growing Corporation which is partly financed out of a capital fund of £1,000,000 contributed by the United Kingdom Government and partly by a statutory levy, carried out by the Customs authorities on imports of cotton into the United Kingdom. The Standing Committee on Empire Forestry whose main function is to maintain continuity of action between meetings of the British Empire Forestry Conference —i.e. in effect to make the necessary preparations for successive conferences. 3. These organizations can suitably be classified under two headings:— (a) in accordance with the nature of their constitution and the source of their finance; or (b) in accordance with the functions which they perform. 4. In classifying these organizations from the point of view of their constitution and finance, the point for consideration is the extent to which they reflect the constitutional relationship between the different parts of the Commonwealth as defined by the Conference of 1926. Only two, viz. the Imperial Economic Committee and the Executive Council of the Imperial Agricultural Bureaux, reflect this relationship closely, but in the case of the Imperial Economic Com--42