396 



Congress of Agriculture has taken it. We have at Rome this 

 strong institute, which is well endowed, and which is strong 

 because of tiie great interest which various European Govern- 

 ments much more so than the British Government have 

 taken in sending able men to that institute in order to promote 

 the interests of agriculture all over the world, both in their 

 dependencies and in their own countries. And I have no doubt 

 myself whatever, from the part I have taken in the proceedings 

 of that institute, that it is going on to be a stronger and more 

 important institution than it is, both as a collecting house for 

 information, which it disseminates through its three great 

 bulletins, and also as a means of securing international under- 

 standings, conventions, and regulations with regard to 

 agriculture, and bringing up the inspection, regulation, and 

 sanitation of agriculture to a higher level all over the world 

 than at present. It is a strong institute, a permanent institute, 

 and an institute which I believe is going to play a great part 

 in the future of the world. Now the International Congress 

 of Agriculture which met last year at Ghent sent to the 

 Agricultural Institute at Rome a recommendation that the 

 members of the Rome Committee who specially represent the 

 agricultural countries should pay special attention to them in 

 the proceedings of the institute, and I think this Congress 

 should do the same; it should associate itself with the Inter- 

 national Agricultural Institute at Rome, and recognize that 

 institute as a permanent workshop for international under- 

 standings and information, and should recommend its proceed- 

 ings to that institute, so that any observations it may have to 

 make, for instance, on the Phytopathological Convention, 

 should go direct to that institute as from this Congress, and 

 should also go to it as from the representatives of the various 

 Governments represented on this Congress. The final accept- 

 ance of such a convention is to be decid'ed by the Governments 

 concerned, and they would not enter into any convention 

 without consulting their tropical dependencies as to whether 

 those dependencies should be involved or not. But what I 

 wished to support in Sir James Wilson's speech was the 

 importance of this Congress of Tropical Agriculture asso- 

 ciating itself with the making use of the International Institute 

 at Rome in the same way as the International Congress of 

 Agriculture at Ghent has done. I have great pleasure in 

 supporting the resolution. 



Mr. H. HAMEL SMITH: Whilst I do not want in any way to 

 go against the proposal, I would like to say, speaking purely 

 as a layman in the matter, that things move so quickly in the 

 tropics that I believe that any central body that has to do with 

 the organization of action against pests would do better work 



