1916] INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH IN CANADA 151 
not be formally encouraged. Experience has shown that there are 
other agencies through which such work can be more efficiently and 
satisfactorily carried out. 
INDUSTRIAL AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH COMMISSION. 
In Great Britain where they are now deeply concerned with this 
question, they established two years ago a Commission on Industrial 
and Scientific Research*. It is controlled by a Committee of the Privy 
Council consisting of three or four members of the Government, and 
directed by an Advisory Council consisting of a small group of men of 
distinction in Science and of accomplishment in the industries. In 
Canada through the initiative action of the Minister of Trade and 
Commerce, Sir George E. Foster, steps have been taken to set up a 
Commission} of a similar character. It appears that such a body is the 
best agency for handling the problem with us. Among its activities it 
will first of all make a survey of the ground for the purpose of seeing 
what organisations are at present in operation and engaged in research 
work. It will be the duty of the Commission to co-ordinate these and 
to extend and develop their efforts. Cognisance will have to be taken 
by the Commission not only of the work done by the Universities but 
also of that done through such agencies as the National and Provincial 
Governmental Departments, the Royal Society, the Royal Canadian 
Institute the Society for Chemical Industry and perhaps what is most 
important of all by private firms in their works. The Commission will 
be able to give definiteness and direction to the efforts now being put 
forth in this direction by the Boards of Trade, the Grain Growers Associ- 
ation and the Canadian Manufacturers’ Association. Machinery will 
have to be devised to prevent overlapping. Steps will have to be taken 
to establish in Ottawa, and probably also in such industrial centres as 
Montreal, Toronto, and Winnipeg, large and fully equipped technical 
libraries which will contain all Scientific and Technical Journals, Trade 
and Industrial Magazines, books, and other publications, and also 
copies of all patents with their specifications wherever issued. We are 
sadly lacking in such facilities at the present time in Canada and the 
Commission should take steps to see that this defect is speedily remedied. 
In Great Britain a large number of the industries have shown extra- 
ordinary enterprise and resourcefulness since the war broke out and 
there has appeared a greater disposition among individual manufac- 
turers to co-operate by interchanging ideas, putting their trade secrets 
into the common stock, and calling in all the available scientific and 
mechanical resources of the country for the purpose of increasing out- 
put and improving organisation. In certain trades the changes which 
*See Appendices I and II. 
{See Appendix IV. 
