397 



in London than at Rome. The International Agricultural 

 Institute at Rome will certainly do great work, but when one 

 has carefully studied the epidemics which are inclined to spring- 

 up in the tropics, and when you consider that this country 

 has such an important area of tropical dependencies, I am 

 rather afraid of committing myself to have to refer all these 

 matters to Rome to wait until a'n international committee has 

 handled them and agreed to them, and then, I suppose, sent 

 them back to us to be administered and worked upon. If we 

 can still keep to ourselves the right, so to speak, of taking 

 matters in hand when we want to, then I am quite ready to 

 have one central organization, but I cannot help feeling that 

 I would rather have the organization that has to do the work 

 in London than in Italy, and to have to come back to us after 

 the matter has been discussed there. 



Sir SYDNEY OLIVIER.: Might I perhaps make an inter- 

 polation on Mr. Hamel Smith's point ? No Government or 

 association in any way sacrifices its autonomy by supporting 

 this resolution; it only gets the benefit of the collaboration 

 of other minds in the advancement of the interests of agricul- 

 ture. The Government of the United States, the Government 

 of England, or any foreign Government is not in the slightest 

 degree hampered in its independent action in dealing with its 

 own pest or pests by the action of the institute at Rome. The 

 institute at Rome only furnishes a common clearing-house for 

 such agreement as can be arrived at; and any decision of any 

 Government is referred to the institute at Rome before being 

 ratified. It is simply a common ground for the collection and 

 diffusion of information, so that it does not appear to me that 

 Mr. Hamel Smith's fears and I have had a great deal of 

 practical experience are at all relevant to the position as it 

 really exists. 



Mr. R. N. LYNE (Director of Agriculture, Ceylon) : I should 

 like to say, as belonging to the Government of one tropical 

 colony, that I should have liked to have seen a copy of these 

 resolutions before being asked to vote on them, because, 

 although one may not vote in favour of any particular 

 resolution, nevertheless the fact of one being present at the 

 meeting might be interpreted as being equivalent to support- 

 ing them, when the fact really is that one has not had an 

 opportunity of fully considering what official responsibilities 

 and obligations are concerned. 



At the request of M. Boris de Fedtschenko (Russia), the 

 President read again the terms of the resolution. 



Professor P. CARMODY (Director of Agriculture, Trinidad) : 

 I would have liked to have had this resolution of Sir James 

 Wilson to read over before the meeting commenced, and 



