1917.] The Fourth Indian Science Congress. cxlv 



bly small extent. In this latter respect there have been a fev> 

 striking exceptions, and perhaps the foremost of these was the 

 projected gift of the late Mr. Tata to the carrying out of which 

 by his sons our Institute owes its existence. 



4 ^^ 



So far as Government contributions are concerned, I must 

 leave it to others interested to make more exact calculations, 

 particularly with a view to deciding what share of this expendi- 

 ture is intended to make for progress in science and to insti- 

 tute comparisons with similar efforts in other countries I can- 

 not arrive at any total for expenditure in Great Britain on 

 corresponding objects, but I note that, at the opening of the 

 National Physical Laboratory in England in 1902, His Majesty 

 the King, then Prince of Wales, expressed the belief that it 

 was '"' almost the first instance of the State taking part in 

 scientific research." and that the capital grant towards that 

 laboratory was £13.000 (viz. under two lakhs), and that the 

 annual allowance towards its maintenance was £4,000 (0*6 

 lakh in our budget terminology), while the only other sum men- 

 tioned by the recently appointed Advisory Council as a State 



contribution of any magnitude in the pre-war period of the pre- 



sent century, is an annual subsidy of £20,000 (since increased 

 to £30.000)' to the Imperial College of Science and Technology 

 at South Kensington. I would ask you to compare these 

 figures so far as they go. on the one hand with those I have 

 just given for some individual institutions in India, and, on the 

 other, with the amount that must have been contributed from 



private sources in England. 



I do not ask you to make any odious comparison with 

 what has been spent by any State in Central Europe but would 

 remind you of a private benefaction in another continent ol 

 about 22 million dollars yielding an annual income of what 

 amounts to over Rs. 30 lakhs in our currency. 



I do not intend to dwell further on finance, nor need I 

 linger over the other wax's in which science has obtained re- 

 cognition in recent years, but it is clear that much has been 

 done not only to remove disadvantages of a public kind but 

 actually to further the progress of science, since the Association 

 we have taken as a model was founded This Congress may 



now do its share. l . ... 



With regard to the first object of the British Association, 

 iz. to give a stronger impulse and a more systematic direc- 

 tion to scientific enquiry. I would ask this Congress to consider 

 how it can secure this stror 



more systematic direction. , 



It seems doubtful whether much will be done in this respect 

 if the programme continues to be limited to an address from 

 the President, a few public lectures; and for the rest, meetings 

 in small sections for the reading of papers some of which, I 

 gather from past proceedings, have been mere preliminary 



VI 



