32 J. A. McClelland on 



regard as possible to the Tweed and the Irish Channel. The 

 research done should he for the Kingdom as a whole, and there 

 should be complete liberty to utilize the most effective institutions 

 and investigators available, irrespective of their location in Eng- 

 land, Wales, Scotland or Ireland. There must, therefore, be a 

 single fund for the assistance of research, under a single respon- 

 sible body." During the present year Australia and Canada 

 have taken steps towards the starting of similar schemes, and no 

 doubt these different schemes will be linked together so that a 

 general scheme of research may operate over the whole Empire. 



Such is the movement that I am bringing before you this 

 evening. Having been honoured by an invitation to serve on the 

 Advisory Council, I am naturally anxious that the existence and 

 Avork of the Council should be Icnown in Ireland, and I gladly 

 accepted the invitation to speak on the subject here to-day. I 

 shall be quite brief, and I hoi^e that at the close of my remarks 

 questions may be asked on any points which interest the audience, 

 or which I have not made sufficiently clear. 



In proceeding to consider the scheme for research, it might 

 be well, in the first place, to refer briefly to the one serious 

 criticism which was made in some quarters against the scheme, 

 because, indeed, the same criticism may have occurred to some 

 of those present. This criticism was that the Advisory Council 

 was mainly composed of men who might be very useful in their 

 laboratories, but who had little knowledge of the requirements of 

 the manufactures and industries which it was intended to help — 

 a criticism true on the whole, but to which the paper establishing 

 the scheme itself provided a sufficient answer. A paragraph of 

 the paper is as follows : — " It is contemplated that the Advisory 

 Council will work largely through Sub Committees reinforced by 

 suitable experts in the particular branch of science or industry 

 concerned. On these Sub-Committees it would be desirable, as 

 far as possible, to enlist the services of persons actually engaged 

 in scientific trades and manufactures dependent on science." 



To carry out that intention the Advisory Council took up at 



