International Agricultural Institute. 



7 



moral and material growth of the Institute. Regulations 

 ought to aid and control the development of an Institution, 

 but never to form an obstacle to its progress. 



I can without difficulty explain to you the fundamental idea 

 of the changes which we propose in Section 2. 



The activity of our technical Bureaux has become very 

 great during these latter months, and will become more 

 intense still in the future, as I shall have the honour to show 

 you later on in this Report. An enormous mass of work has 

 to be done with precision and regularity, generally in a very 

 short period of time, and this work cannot reasonably be 

 expected from a General Assembly. The Permanent Com- 

 mittee must always furnish the ideas which lie behind this 

 work, and must keep it under their constant control ; but they 

 must leave to the Bureaux and to their Chief — the Secretary- 

 General — the actual execution of those ideas, and must provide 

 them with suitable powers. 



The Secretary-General in his turn ought to be responsible 

 to the Permanent Committee for the carrying out of the work. 

 By this means we shall eliminate the uncertainties, and avoid 

 the obstacles, which are the fatal consequences of a confusion 

 of responsibility; and the organisation of the Institute will 

 gain both in strength and in adaptability. 



The other alteration that we propose to submit to vou 

 relates to the separation into two parts of the second Bureau. 

 According to Article 16, there is to be one Bureau only for 

 Statistics, Agricultural Intelligence, and Plant Diseases. The 

 work of this Bureau is disproportionate and unduly heavy. 

 Thus in practice it has been found necessary to have a Bureau 

 for Statistics and another for Agricultural Intelligence and 

 Plant Diseases. This was the more necessary because the 

 knowledge required by the staff of the two divisions was 

 different. We ask you, therefore, to be pleased to approve of 

 this separation, which experience has shown to be indis- 

 pensable. 



Work of the Institute. 



I will now proceed to deal with the technical work com- 

 menced since the last Assembly, the objects which have been 



