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convention under which it was founded. It is an official 
institute, managed by different officials appointed by the 
delegates of the different Governments, who sit there per- 
manently and govern it. It is a wealthy institute, and has an 
income furnished by those Governments, in addition to the 
£12,000 a year which the King of Italy has most generously 
subscribed towards it. The total income this year is estimated 
at £47,000. The adhering states pay of that amount £35,000, 
and I may mention, parenthetically, that the states of the 
British Empire adhering to that institute pay of that sum about 
£3,900 a year, or about one-twelfth of the total. The states 
group themselves into five groups. Those in the first group 
pay £1,600 a year, and so on downwards, until we come to 
those in the fifth group who pay only £100 a year. Each of 
the states appoints a delegate to the permanent committee, so 
that the institute is governed by official delegates of all the 
adhering countries. There may have been a sort of impression 
that the institute is run more in the interests of temperate 
than of tropical regions. That perhaps is to be expected 
in a sense, because the temperate countries are more advanced 
in these matters, and the delegates coming from those countries 
are generally very experienced and intelligent men. But 
the institute by no means confines itself to the temperate 
regions. As a matter of fact, each of the tropical countries 
adhering is represented on the tropical committee, and 
perhaps, if I am not detaining you too long, you will let me 
read you a list of those tropical countries which subscribe to 
the institute and have representatives on the governing body. 
To begin with America: Cuba, Mexico, Guatemala, Salvador, 
Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, 
Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil. In Africa: Algeria, 
Tunis, Tripoli, Egypt, Abyssinia, Eritrea, Union of South 
Africa, Mauritius. In Asia: Turkey, Persia, India, China, 
Netherland Indies. Australia also is one of the adhering 
countries. So that you already have on the institute a number 
of representatives of tropical countries. Then if you look at 
our three bulletins published monthly you will find a good deal 
of information given with regard to tropical crops, including 
statistics, etc., relating to rice, sugar, cotton, tobacco, and 
maize collected from all the different countries of the world. 
In fact, these bulletins contain the most accurate and up-to-date 
information which could be put together by any body. Then 
in the technical and economic bulletins you will find frequent 
quotations from documents published by tropical countries 
and references to tropical interests. Now there is no doubt 
that the institute might pay more attention than it does to 
these subjects, and the best way in which to attain that end 
