236 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



goods for sale in the United Kingdom. The British Government, after 

 consultation with the Dominion Governments, accepted the Report and 

 created the Empire Marketing Board, which is the executive body for the 

 administration of the funds. The Empire Marketing Board early turned 

 its attention to the encouragement of research as the second of its functions. 

 Almost simultaneously with the creation of the Empire Marketing 

 Board was set up the Committee of Civil Research, consisting of the Prime 

 Minister and the Lord President of the Council, with power to set up ad hoc 

 sub-committees for any purpose other than military. Here, then, we have 

 already two bodies calculated to assist in the procedure which I have out- 

 lined. The Committee of Civil Research, flexible enough to inquire into 

 and report upon any non- military subject under the sun, and the Empire 

 Marketing Board — a body with funds to finance research. 



It was borne in upon those who had inquired into research in the non- 

 self-governing Colonies that much good work was lost in pigeon holes, that 

 scientists were sometimes engaged on the same problems unknown to 

 each other, that overlapping occurred, and that facilities for the exchange 

 of information were inadequate. Accordingly, when the Imperial Agri- 

 cultural Research Conference was held in London in 1927, influenced as it 

 was by the great success which had followed the formation of the Bureaux 

 of Entomology and of Mycology, it strongly recommended the creation of 

 clearing stations or Information Bureaux for the collection and distri- 

 bution of information concerning certain sections of agricultural research. 

 The proposal found acceptance with the British and Dominion Govern- 

 ments and with the Colonies, and several of these bureaux are now in 

 operation. I believe that they will prove of extraordinary value in the 

 development of the Empire. They are eight in number for the present. 

 How far they may be added to, experience will decide. They are all, by 

 the unanimous decision of Empire delegates, situated in Britain. They 

 deal with Soils, Animal Nutrition, Animal Genetics, Animal Hygiene, 

 Plant Breeding, Animal Parasitology, and Fruit Production. They are 

 not research institutions, but in each case they are attached to research 

 institutions, and their first directors are the directors of the research 

 stations. 



Each bureau will focus the information on the subject — will act as 

 a gathering ground for theories and theorists, as an illuminant and 

 expositor, and eventually we may hojje, as a finger-post to new and 

 profitable roads and by-paths of research. These bm'eaux, to which all 

 Governments of the Empire have agreed to contribute, embody the first 

 organisation which is Imperially owned and Imperially governed, and 

 which has been set up to serve the Empire. 



The Bureau of Soils at Rothamsted, or of Animal Genetics at Edin- 

 burgh, is just as much the property of South Africa and Australia as of 

 England or Scotland ; and England and Scotland sit on the Executive 

 Council as representatives only of their countries. 



It is not , enough, however, to accumulate details. It is foolish to i 

 make a list of the stars and remain content with the catalogue. The 

 details must be followed by a synthesis to sum up and explain the details, 

 and arising out of the synthesis will appear the clues to some problems,! 

 the explanation of others, and the broad lines of strategy on which the! 



