pretation of the Draft Convention, and that it is quite possible 

 to adhere to the Convention and yet retain any particular re- 

 strictions that may be desired. The Convention simply says 

 that no country which adheres to the Convention will admit 

 plants without a certificate; it does not say that all countries 

 which adhere to the Convention will admit plants that have 

 such certificates. I think you will understand the distinction. 

 It is quite possible for a country like South Africa to retain its 

 own particular restrictions whilst adhering to the proposed 

 Convention. 



Now I should like to say a few words about tropical 

 countries. I have lived in India, and I naturally look upon 

 the question from the point of view of India. Mr. Rogers has 

 said that in India we have no restrictions at all. As a matter 

 of fact, I think we do fumigate cotton seed, but I think that 

 is the only precaution we take. As regards the importation 

 of cotton plants from other countries, India would no doubt 

 be quite willing to accept the Convention, and to require certi- 

 ficates with plants imported. But there is this difficulty, look- 

 ing at it from the point of view of India. The Convention says 

 that the country adhering must promise to establish an efficient 

 system of inspection of nurseries and places where plants are 

 grown for sale or export. Now India is an enormous country, 

 and to establish what in India we should call an efficient system 

 of inspection for the whole country would mean an enormous 

 expenditure, and would be exceedingly difficult to carry out. 

 I tried to get an interpretation, at the Congress, of the meaning 

 of the words " efficient system of inspection," but I was told 

 that each Government must make up its own mind about that, 

 that it was a matter for its own conscience, and that if the 

 Indian Government thought it could say that it had an efficient 

 system of inspection, there would be no difficulty with the 

 Convention. That, I think, would be the chief difficulty for 

 the Government of India in making up its mind whether it 

 could conscientiously adhere to the Convention or not. 



As regards the proposal that there should be a Committee 

 appointed to consider the question further and to collect infor- 

 mation about it, in the Draft Convention itself each country 

 that adheres promises to arrang'e for the interchange of 

 information between its expert staff and research institutions, 

 and the International Institute of Agriculture at Rome is to 

 be the means of collecting and communicating this informa- 

 tion, as indeed it already is, to all the countries which adhere 

 to the Convention, which means almost all the countries of the 

 world. We have a Bulletin published every month which con- 

 tains an account of plant diseases, and^ the International Insti- 

 tute is anxious to collect all the information it can about plant 

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