1887.] on the Wovh of the Imperial Institute. 123 



to the great industries of the country, and to the advancement of 

 technical and commercial education, cannot fail to be at least as im- 

 portant as its immediate connection with the wants of the commercial 

 section of the community, and those are most certainly quite indei^en- 

 dent of the particular locality in which it may be placed, excepting 

 in so far as the command of ample space, and the advantages to 

 be derived from juxta-position with the great National establish- 

 ments to which I have referred, is concerned. At the same time, 

 there is not one of the directions in which the development of 

 the resources and activity of the Institute has been thus far indicated, 

 which has not an immediate and im}3ortant bearing upon the advance- 

 ment of the commerce of the Empire. There are, however, special 

 functions to be fulfilled by the Institute, which are most immediately 

 connected alike with the great commercial work of the City of 

 London and with that of the provincial centres of commerce. The 

 provision, in very central and readily accessible j)Ositions, of com- 

 mercial museums or collections of natural or import products, and of 

 ex]3ort products of different nations, combined with comprehensive 

 sample-rooms and facilities for the business of inspection or of 

 commercial, chemical or physical examination, is a work in which 

 the Institute should lend most important aid. The system of corre- 

 spondence with all parts of the Empire which it will develop and 

 maintain will enable it to collect, and form a central depot of, natural 

 products from which local commercial museums can be supjolied with 

 comj^lete, thoroughly classified economic collections, and with repre- 

 sentative samples of all that, from time to time, is new in the way 

 of natural products from the Colonies and Dependencies, from India, 

 and from other countries. In combination with this organisation, the 

 distribution, to commercial centres, of information acquired by a 

 central department of commercial geography will constitute an im- 

 portant feature in the work of the Institute, bearing immediately 

 upon the interests of the merchant at home, in the Colonies, and in 

 India. 



The formation of specially commercial institutions, of which 

 enquiry offices, museums, and sample rooms with their accessories, 

 will form a leading feature, and which will supply a want long since 

 provided for by the Nations with whom we compete commercially, 

 is already in contemiDlation in the Cities of London and Newcastle ; 

 other great commercial centres will also doubtless speedily take 

 steps to provide accommodation for similar offshoots from the central 

 collections of the Institute. So far as the Indian Empire is con- 

 cerned, the organisation of correspondence by provincial committees 

 which already exists in connection with economic and geological 

 museums established in the several Presidencies, affords facilities for 

 the speedy elaboration of the contemplated system of corresjiondence 

 in connection with the Institute, and the establishment of similar 

 organisations in the different Colonies will, it is hoped, be heartily 

 entered ujjon and speedily developed. 



