i9i i.] Report or the Development Commissioners. 377 



These figures do not take account of the considerable sums, 

 of which no definite estimate can yet be given but for which 

 schemes were either being prepared or were under examina- 

 tion by the Commissioners at the close of the year, e.g., 

 forestry in England and Wales, the purchase of a demonstra- 

 tion area in Scotland and the establishment there of a central 

 school of forestry, the development of Irish fisheries and 

 fishery harbours, and the encouragement of the organisation 

 of co-operation throughout the United Kingdom. Nor do 

 they take account of applications which had not reached the 

 Commissioners, though known as having been made or about 

 to be made to the Treasury — as, for instance, schemes for the 

 development and improvement of British fisheries and of 

 Scotch harbours; nor again of possible expenditure on such 

 projects as the revival of the flax and hemp industries, the 

 encouragement of tobacco and beet cultivation, or the estab- 

 lishment of an institution for the study of rural economics. 



In the first nine months of their work the Commissioners, 

 so far as they are concerned, have allocated, and, as they 

 think, rightly allocated, one-third of the annual income 

 guaranteed to the Development Fund for five years. Out 

 of the two-thirds which now remain they hope to provide 

 during the coming year for considerable annual expenditure 

 on such purposes as forestry and forestry instruction and the 

 organisation of co-operation ; and it cannot be supposed that 

 expenditure on the purposes with which they have already 

 dealt ought to or will remain stationary at the amounts pro- 

 visionally fixed. Looking to these facts, the Commissioners 

 state that they cannot but feel some apprehension that unless 

 Parliament comes to the aid of the Fund its position in a very 

 few years will not be a strong one. They will, however, be 

 far more able to form an opinion on this important question 

 at the end of the financial year 1911-12, by which time they 

 hope that all the applications hitherto made to the Treasury 

 will have reached them from the Government Departments, 

 that considerable schemes known to be in preparation will 

 have been submitted, and that the inquiries which they are 

 making into such subjects as flax, hemp, and tobacco cultiva- 

 tion will have been completed, or be on the point of 

 completion. 



