52 Royal Colonial Institute. 



(2) To encourage and facilitate the trade and industry of the Empire in every 

 practicable way ; for example, by arranging for the reading of papers and delivery of 

 addresses on financial, industrial and trade subjects by competent authorities, before 

 the Institute itself and before the Chambers of Commerce and trade associations, 

 and like bodies in the leading industrial centres, as well as by answering inquiries 

 from British men of business in all parts of the Empire in regard to the actual or 

 potential manufacture or supply of goods by British firms and from British sources 

 (see also XVIII. — The Information Bureau). 



By far the greater proportion of work of the Committee in the period since the 

 beginning of the war has been concerned with a practical attempt to aid in the con- 

 solidation of the trade of the Empire within itself by all sound methods, and especially 

 by the absorption of that portion of the trade formerly enjoyed by Germany and 

 Austria which could equally well be supplied from British sources. For this purpose an 

 office of the Committee has been established as a regular working department of the 

 Institute, which deals specifically with an increasing number of inquiries from all 

 parts of the world. In addition to the actual satisfaction of inquirers, the ojfice of the 

 Committee has accumulated a large amount of information in respect to the trade and 

 commerce of the British Empire. The Honorary Corresponding Secretaries have 

 supplied by their splendid efforts a large mass of facts bearing directly upon the 

 practical aspect of the capture of enemy trade, and where any manufacturer is desirous 

 of doing for a British Colony, or for the Empire as a whole, what has been done by 

 German and Austrian firms in the past, he can obtain from the Committee just that 

 type of practical information which will put him on the right lines for the commence- 

 ment of his oversea campaign. In connection with the classified information before 

 referred to, extracts from the Press, both of the home country and the Dominions 

 themselves are preserved in the Committee's records, and a bibliography prepared 

 by Mr. Evans Lewin, Librarian of the Institute, forms the basis of a continuous index 

 of all printed matter dealing with industrial and commercial questions within the 

 Empire. In this bibliography, which is kept up-to-date by the office of the Committee, 

 are inchided all technical periodicals, text-books and Government publications touching 

 matters which come under the heading of trade or industry. It will therefore be 

 seen that this comprehensive system of special reports and press cuttings, together 

 with the bibliography, form a valuable and an imique index for the use of the business 

 man who is seeking an oversea trade. 



Information for Oversea Business Men. — The following are some of the services 

 imdertaken by the Committee which are especially aimed at as being of service to 

 persons Overseas, and are, so far, amply justifying their inception by the Committee : 



(1) To bring before the notice of persons in the United Kingdom likely to be 

 interested, any British product which is characteristic of or peculiar to any one of the 

 British Possessions. 



(2) To introduce the raw materials of the Empire to manufacturers. 



(3) To find for buyers Overseas, British manufacturers to make .goods formerly 

 obtained from Germany and Austria. In some cases the Committee has induced 

 British firms to take up the manufacture of goods formerly not made at all within 

 the Empire. 



