370 Report of the Development Commissioners, [aug., 



pieces of research work were expected, and have, in fact, been 

 made by bodies, institutions, and associations all over the 

 kingdom. It seemed to the Commissioners that there would 

 inevitably be waste of energy and money if these applications 

 were simply taken one by one as they arrived, and advances 

 recommended to those institutions which made out a good 

 case for themselves, irrespective of other institutions and the 

 work done by them. It is probably neither desirable nor 

 possible to prevent all overlapping and duplication of work, 

 and the Commissioners realise that individual investigators 

 and institutions cannot and ought not to be dragooned into 

 uncongenial tasks. But looking to the vast amount of work 

 still to be done, they think that any advances from the Fund 

 for this purpose should be made on a coherent and compre- 

 hensive scheme, covering as wide an area as possible. The 

 result of the absence of such a plan might well be that research 

 work subsidised from public funds would be unnecessarily 

 duplicated, or that one institution would undertake some 

 enticing problem with which it was fitted to deal, but not 

 so well fitted as another institution in a different part of the 

 country, or that there would be concentration of effort upon 

 one part of the field of agricultural research, while other parts, 

 no less important scientifically and economically, but for some 

 reason less attractive, were left neglected and unexplored. 



"Agricultural research has been taken as an example, but 

 it will be obvious that similar considerations apply to other 

 purposes for which advances may be made from the Fund. 

 The Commissioners do not lay it down as a hard-and-fast 

 rule that under no circumstances, however special, will they 

 recommend an advance from the Development Fund apart 

 from an examination of all possible or probable applications 

 of the same nature or apart from a general scheme applicable 

 to the whole country or a large part of it ; and the necessity 

 of such a scheme varies with the purpose for which advances 

 are desired. But, for the reasons briefly indicated above, they 

 feel that as a rule an application should be considered not 

 simply and entirely as a disconnected unit, but in the light 

 of a policy which takes account of the requirements of a wider 

 area than a single district or institution." 



In addition to this general policy, the Commissioners point 



