SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH: AN EMPIRE APPEAL. _ 
obtained the consent of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury to the 
provision of a liberal grant of £20,000 a year from the Estimates of the 
United Kingdom for 1919-20 and the four following years, to be expended 
in stimulating scientific research with a view to developing the economic 
resources of the Colonies and Protectorates. This grant, if it is duly 
voted, will be administered by a small Committee, to be known as the 
Colonial Research Committee, which will work in co-operation with the 
Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, the Imperial Mineral 
Resources Bureau, the Universities, particularly those of industrial 
districts, and other existing institutions. In the first instance, the 
members of the Committee will be Mr. H. J. Mackinder, M.P. (Chair- 
man), two Assistant Under-Seecretaries of State for the Colonies, and 
Sir Frank Heath, the Secretary of the Department for Scientific and 
Industrial Research. The grant, liberal though it is, is evidently 
insufficient for a large number of researches, and the Committee will 
have to content itself with selecting for investigation a few of the most 
promising of the subjects which may be brought to its notice. It may 
sometimes be the case that a research may be required which would be 
chiefly in the collective interests of the Empire or in the interests of 
some part of it other than the part in which the research would be 
carried out. If it were convenient that such a research should be under- 
taken by a Colonial Government, the fact that that Government is 
prosperous would not debar it from participating in the grant. 
8. To the whole question of research and investigation raised by this 
despatch I attach the greatest possible importance, and I trust that you 
will give it your personal consideration, in consultation with your 
scientific and economic officers and with suitable members of the unofficial 
community, and that you will then furnish me with a brief review of 
the present position of affairs, and with an account of the further steps 
which in your judgment should be taken in the near future. 
9. There is no objection to the publication of this despatch. 
I have the honour to be, 
Sir, 
Your most obedient, humble servant, 
MILNER. 
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