116 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



the case is very different. If any of these conclusions are 

 liable to be made a basis for action by the Government or 

 by any Fisheries Authority, they ought obviously to be 

 subjected to the same open discussion and free criticism 

 as would take place in the case of an ordinary scientific 

 theory. This will, no doubt, be the case eventually with 

 the International results, but in the meantime it is most 

 undesirable that conclusions or opinions expressed 

 authoritatively should be put forward unsupported by the 

 detailed observations on which they are based. 



The Ichthyological Research Committee. 



At the same time that Great Britain undertook to 

 participate for a limited number of years in the Inter- 

 national investigations, the Committee above referred 

 to was sitting at the Board of Trade charged to 

 report "as to the best means by which the State 

 or local authorities can assist scientific research as 

 applied to problems affecting the fisheries of Great 

 Britain and Ireland." This Committee, which reported 

 in 1902, consisted of four representatives of Government 

 departments (the late Mr. S. E. Spring-Rice, of the 

 Treasury; Mr. Pelham, of the Board of Trade; Sir. C. 

 Seott-Moncrieff and Sheriff Crawford, of the Scottish 

 Office); and four zoologists or fisheries experts 

 (Mr. Walter E. Archer, of the English Fisheries Depart- 

 ment ; the Rev. W. Spotswood Green, of the Irish 

 Fisheries Department; Professor J. Arthur Thomson, of 

 Aberdeen; and Professor W. A. Herdman, of Liverpool). 



After the detailed examination of many witnesses 

 representing science, the fishing industries, and all 

 other interests concerned, and some discussion of results, 

 the four experts were requested by their colleagues to 



