191 1.] Report of the Development Commissioners. 371 



out that they do not think that it would be consistent with 

 their duty to recommend an advance from the Development 

 Fund until a fairly detailed scheme for the expenditure of the 

 money is framed and approved, and that they do not propose, 

 as a general rule and subject in certain cases to considerations 

 of practical convenience, to recommend advances from the 

 Development Fund in relief of existing expenditure, whether 

 from Parliamentary votes, local rates, or other sources. They 

 propose to proceed rather on an opposite plan. So far from 

 recommending- advances in relief of existing expenditure, 

 they contemplate using the Fund, within reasonable limits, 

 as a means of provoking expenditure from other sources. 



Policy in Regard to Agricultural Development. — Having 

 regard to the amount of the Development Fund, they propose 

 to deal with the problem of agricultural development by 

 devoting their attention principally to three lines of action. 

 They aim first at increasing the amount and quality of the 

 product of agriculture by assisting the extension of a system 

 of scientific investigation and research, and, with it, of a 

 system of education which will, so far as possible, ensure that 

 the results of investigation and research are known and 

 utilised in practice ; and secondly, they aim at increasing the 

 variety of production, by placing the cultivator in a position 

 to know whether he can add certain new crops and industries 

 to the existing number with a reasonable probability of profit. 

 Finally, looking at the problem from a rather different and 

 more strictly commercial point of view, they propose to 

 encourage in particular the organisation of co-operation — a 

 subject which is expressly named in the Act. 



It is not really possible immediately to do a great deal 

 in regard to the first and third of these three lines of action 

 by the simple process of spending a great deal of money, 

 for the reason that there are not the men available. Nothing 

 has impressed the Commissioners more than the clearness 

 with which the fact has appeared that the first condition of 

 any considerable progress in these ways is the creation of a 

 I trained staff. It is useless to expect that immediate results 

 of real value can be obtained on a large scale merely by 

 expenditure. One example is sufficient : the number of men 

 really qualified to conduct agricultural research in this country 



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