July 27, 191 1] 



NATURE 



119 



is not from a Government department, the Treasury are to 

 send it to the Government department concerned with 

 the subject-matter of the application, who are required to 

 forward it in due course with their report to the com- 

 missioners. When the application reaches the com- 

 missioners they have to consider it and state their opinion 

 to the Treasury, with whom rests the responsibility of 

 finally deciding whether to give effect or not to the com- 

 missioners' recommendation if it is favourable. If the 

 Treasury approve, the money is advanced as required to 

 the applicant — direct, if the applicant be a Government 

 department ; if the applicant be some other body or associa- 

 tion, through the department concerned, who are then 

 responsible for supervising the actual expenditure. 



From this procedure, as laid down by the Act of 1909, 

 three main results follow. In the first place, the com- 

 missioners themselves have no power to make grants or 

 loans from the Development Fund ; like other Royal com- 

 missions, they can only recommend expenditure, which 

 must be finally authorised by the Government. Treasury 

 approval is required for every penny spent from the fund. 

 Secondly (again like other Royal commissions, or the 

 majority of them), they have no executive power ; the 

 schemes recommended by the commissioners must be 

 carried out either by a Government department or by some 

 other body under the supervision of a department. 

 Thirdly, they have no formal and official cognisance of 

 applications from bodies other than Government depart- 

 ments, and cannot report to the Treasury on them, until 

 the applications have been examined by and passed through 

 the departments concerned with their subject-matter. 



Such being in general terms the position assigned to the 

 commissioners by the Act, it became incumbent on them to 

 settle at an early stage of their proceedings the main 

 principles by which they would be guided in considering, 

 amending, and framing schemes for expenditure from the 

 Development Fund. 



The first of these principles is that, to deal satisfactorily 

 with many of the purposes mentioned in the Act of 1900, 

 it is absolutely necessary to work on a comprehensive 

 policy, which shall provide for and take account of the 

 whole of at least one of the three main administrative 

 divisions of the United Kingdom (viz. England and Wales, 

 Scotland, and Ireland), and shall wherever possible be 

 based on a survey of the position and needs of the whole 

 kingdom in relation to that particular subject. Take, for 

 instance, the very important question of research in agri- 

 cultural science. Numerous applications for advances from 

 the Development Fund for different branches of research 

 and pieces of research work were expected, and have, in 

 fact, been made by bodies, institutions, and associations all 

 over the kingdom. It seemed to the commissioners that 

 there would inevitably be waste of energy and money if 

 these applications were simply taken one by one as they 

 arrived, and advances recommended to those institutions 

 which made out a good case for themselves, irrespective of 

 other institutions and the work done by them. It is prob- 

 ably neither desirable nor possible to prevent all over- 

 lapping and duplication of work, and the commissioners 

 realise that individual investigators and institutions cannot 

 and ought not to be dragooned into uncongenial tasks. 

 But looking to the vast amount of work still to be done, 

 they think that any advances from the fund for this pur- 

 pose should be made on a coherent and comprehensive 

 scheme, covering as wide an area as possible. 



Agricultural research has been taken as an example, but 

 it will be obvious that similar considerations apply to other 

 purposes for which advances may be made from the fund. 

 The commissioners do not lay it down as a hard-and-fast 

 rule that in no circumstances, however special, will they 

 recommend an advance from the Development Fund anart 

 from an examination of all possible or probable applica- 

 tions of the same nature, or apart from a general scheme 

 applicable to the whole country or a large part of it ; and 

 the necessity of such a scheme varies with the purpose for 

 which advances are desired. But for the reasons briefly 

 indicated above, they feel that as a rule an application 

 should be considered not simply and entirely as a discon- 

 nected unit, but in the light of a policy which takes 

 account of the requirements of a wider area than a single 

 district or institution. 



From the adoption of this attitude, certain practical con- 

 sequences follow. In the first place, it is impossible to 

 deal with individual applications as quickly as if they were 

 taken one by one, without reference to general considera- 

 tions. To recommend even a large number of disconnected 

 advances is obviously a very different thing from working 

 out or examining in detail a coherent and organised scheme 

 which is meant to be applicable to the whole country .or a 

 large part of it — a scheme in which existing bodies and 

 institutions would each find a place consistent with its 

 possible contribution to the general advancement. 



It follows, secondly, that the relations of the com- 

 missioners with Government departments must necessarily 

 be of the closest nature. In any event they must be close, 

 for all applications come either from or through a depart- 

 ment, and all advances from the fund must be made either 

 to or through a department. But the commissioners' 

 policy of proceeding by general schemes necessarily means 

 that they welcome such applications as the departments 

 themselves may make ; and for reasons similar to those 

 which have influenced the commissioners, the departments, 

 when confronted with the duty of reporting on a large 

 number of disconnected applications, have perhaps felt that 

 they would best discharge that duty by themselves putting 

 forward a general scheme which would cover and include 

 so far as possible the schemes of the individual applicants. 

 The commissioners cannot consistently with their statutory 

 duty accept such schemes without consideration, and it is 

 not a matter for surprise if they do not always find them- 

 selves in entire agreement with the applying department. 

 In such cases, discussion between the two bodies is the 

 only way of settling a scheme : for on the one hand it 

 cannot be financed without the commissioners' recom- 

 mendation, and on the other (the commissioners having no 

 executive authority) it cannot be executed apart from the 

 department. The commissioners are happy to say that they 

 have hitherto encountered no difficulties with public depart- 

 ments which full discussion has proved unable to solve. 



In the third place, procedure by general schemes 

 involving large advances to Government departments 

 brings into clear view the difficulties and delays caused by 

 the inevitable complication of the administrative machinery 

 of the United Kingdom. The nature of some subjects is 

 such as to permit of their being considered separately for 

 separate parts of the country ; yet even with such subjects 

 more than one department may be concerned — for instance, 

 agricultural education (as distinct from scientific research) 

 is in different branches within the purview of both the 

 Board of Education and the Board of Agriculture. With 

 some subjects, on the other hand, the commissioners might 

 wish to deal, if possible, on a scheme or schemes taking 

 account of all parts of the United Kingdom ; and in that 

 case they might be concerned at the same time with one 

 or perhaps two authorities for England and Wales, another 

 for Scotland, and another one or two for Ireland. 



It will not escape observation that the one case (viz. 

 the encouragement of horse-breeding) in which during the 

 first few months of the commissioners' existence Govern- 

 ment departments were able to submit, and the com- 

 missioners to recommend, comprehensive schemes, is pre- 

 cisely a case in which some of the difficulties mentioned 

 have been absent. There is only one authority for the 

 whole of Great Britain. The Irish scheme had been in 

 existence for some years, and by common consent worked 

 well, needing only money for its extension ; and the British 

 scheme followed, generally, similar lines. 



The other principles on which the commissioners proceed 

 may be explained more briefly. In the first place, they do 

 not think that it would be consistent with their duty to 

 recommend an advance from the Development Fund until 

 a fairly detailed scheme for the expenditure of the money 

 is framed and approved. 



Secondly, they do not propose, as a general .rule, and 

 subject in certain cases to considerations of practical con- 

 venience, to recommend advances from the Development 

 Fund in relief of existing expenditure, whether from Parlia- 

 mentary votes, local rates, or other sources. In their 

 view, it was the intention of Parliament that the fund 

 should be used to promote new work, so to speak, not to 

 pay for work already financed from other quarters. 



Thirdly, the commissioners will, in general, recommend 



NO. 2178, VOL. 87] 



