2 
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [Sess. 
“As regards the refereeing of papers, it was generally agreed that, 
under ordinary circumstances, when a paper is sent in from a worker m 
a Research Department, the head of the Department in which the work 
had been done should be recognised as one referee reporting on the paper. 
The other referee should be appointed outside the Department. If the 
reports differ essentially, the Council would then appoint a third referee, 
and would come to their final decision on the three reports sent in. Papers 
from investigators outside recognised Research Departments should be 
reported on by one or more referees as required. 
“As regards the awarding of prizes, the Committee considered very 
carefully the suggestion that the Council ‘ appoint a man of distinguished 
eminence, preferably outside Scotland, to serve as standing referee in each 
main Department of Science, and, at each period of consideration of the 
award of prizes, forward to him the papers in his own department, and 
ask him to state whether any one of them is of such outstanding dis- 
tinction as to merit the allocation of one of the Society’s prizes.’ It was 
felt that there were various difficulties in carrying out such a scheme 
satisfactorily, and one very practical difficulty would be the necessity of 
paying such a referee a substantial fee. Under the present financial 
conditions of the Society such an arrangement is obviously out of the 
question. The Committee accordingly did not see their way to suggest 
any change in the present method of appointing a committee of experts 
in the sciences falling within the biological or physical groups.” 
Various reports have recently been published that demonstrate the 
valuable results achieved by the endowment of research, and the necessity 
of increasing this endowment in order to cope with the keen international 
competition that will ensue when peace is declared. 
The Report of the Privy Council for Scientific and Industrial Research 
for the year 1917-18 demands special consideration. In my brief address 
at the beginning of last session I gave an outline of the more important 
developments of this new Government Department, which is charged with 
administering the sum of one million pounds, covering a period of five 
years. The great aim of this organisation is that of co-operative industrial 
research having a direct bearing on the industries of the country. The 
report just issued shows that great progress has been made in establishing 
industrial research associations of manufacturers under the Companies 
Acts, working without the distribution of profits and limited by a normal 
guarantee. The effort to include some representation of labour in the 
councils of these research associations has been successful. At a conference 
held at the Ministry of Labour it was arranged that the Department would 
