WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24—MORNING SESSION, 
11.45 A.M. 
Legislation against Plant Diseases and Pests. 
Chairman: SiR S\DNEY OLIVIER, K.C.M.G., Permanent 
Secretary to the Board of Agriculture, formerly Governor 
of Jamaica. . 
THE CuHaiRMAN : Gentlemen—The subject for discussion at 
this meeting is ‘‘ Legislation against Plant Diseases and 
Pests,’’ and it is a subject in which I hope this Congress will 
take particular interest. It is a subject which we shall be treat- 
ing in a somewhat different manner from that in which we 
have dealt with our subjects hitherto. Hitherto we have had 
contributions from men of experience in different branches of 
agriculture, telling us what they have done, what methods 
they have pursued—they and their Governments and their 
Associations—as a sort of object-lesson in what might be 
done in other parts of the world. But to-day we shall be 
dealing rather with what is truly an international question ; 
that is to say, the question of regulations to be made in all 
countries and all colonies with a view to diminishing the 
probability of the spread of plant diseases from one country 
to another, as well as in any particular country. It is a good 
many years now Since the attention of the world was called 
to the necessity of this by the outbreak of two very serious 
diseases, the phylloxera in France and the coffee disease in 
the East. Those two outbreaks called the attention of the 
world to the necessity both of some kind of internal adminis- 
trative reform, and also, if possible, of some kind of inter- 
national Convention with regard to the restriction of such 
diseases. As a consequence of those outbreaks we have 
had a progressive study of plant diseases, and a progressive 
study also of the methods of dealing with and controlling 
those diseases so as to prevent their spread in the countries 
