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SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. 
should accordingly be unconnected with any administrative Department of the 
State. These considerations led naturally to the selection of the Lord President, 
for the Privy Council is the only Department which has relations with the 
whole Empire, and which is free from administrative responsibilities. Parlia- 
ment voted the Minister, or rather a Committee of the Privy Council, of which 
he was chairman, a sum of moncy to spend on the encouragement and organiza- 
tion of scientific research—not a fixed sum, but an annual vote susceptible of 
increase. By an Order in Council, all proposals for spending money upon these 
purposes stand referred to the permanent Commission, which is called the 
Advisory Council for Scientific and Industrial Research; and the Advisory 
Council can initiate proposals of their own. It was a small but most signifi- 
sant change in the traditional procedure. The idea of making the Commission 
permanent was not new. ‘There have been a good many permanent advisory 
committees to Government departments. The provision for changing the 
personnel from time to time is not new. The selection of a small body of men 
specially qualified to deal with the subject in hand is not new. ‘The novel 
feature was the delegation of the responsibility for thinking out a policy to a 
permanent body of experts who are not civil servants, and making this expert 
body an integral part of the machine by giving them the services of the 
permanent staff of the Department, and keeping them continually informed of 
every departmental procedure. This was insured by providing them with an 
administrative chairman who has devoted his whole time to the work, and 
with a secretariat which includes the heads—instead of the junior members— 
of the administrative staff. In a word, the Minister, instead of relying upon 
his officials for advice—whether technical or administrative—supplemented by 
such occasional guidance upon particular questions as he might refer to 
temporary Royal Commissions or to permanent Advisory Committees, placed 
all his technical advice in commission, and intrusted it to a body of seven 
independent and distinguished men of science, the majority of whom were also 
large industrialists. The result of this experiment has been most interesting. 
The general policy of the Minister, and of the Government, has been worked 
out, not by the official, but by the Advisory Council. The Council has watched 
the effects of the action it has recommended, and has gradually built up a 
method of procedure consonant with the original intention of the Government. 
Stated in its simplest terms, the intention of the Government in the Order in 
Council establishing the new organization was that action was needed in three 
main directions. In the first, place, research was needed in a number of. direc- 
tions hitherto neglected; secondly, it would be necessary to establish new 
institutions or to develop existing institutions for the scientific study of 
problems affecting particular industries and trades. And, finally, it was clear 
that the number of trained research workers in the country was inadequate 
to our needs. The information possessed by the Board of Education was clear 
on this point, and had led the President, Mr. Joseph Pease (now Lord Gainford), 
to urge the establishment of the new organization which was later set up 
as an independent Department. All these three main lines of action were 
mentioned in the original Order in Council, and proposals in regard to them 
stood referred to the Advisory Council. How did the Council proceed? They 
began, as an interim measure, by recommending the Minister to assist a number 
of researches conducted by scientific and - professional societies which were 
languishing as a result of the war, and they also recommended grants to the 
National Physical Laboratory for an urgent research into the methods of 
manufacturing optical glass, and to a committee at the Central School of 
Pottery at Stoke-on-Trent for research into the manufacture of hard porcelain 
from British materials. This research has had most successful and promising 
results. Meantime, the Council have gradually and steadily worked out, in 
consultation with University professors and teachers in technical schools, with 
the leaders of many of our principal industries, and with each of the Govern- 
ment Departments, a systematic procedure along the whole front, which has 
not only commended itself to the responsible Minister and to the Government 
of the day, but has been adopted, or is being adopted, by each of the self- 
governing Dominions, with variations suited to local conditions, and by three 
at least of our Allies (America, France, and Japan). 
I will divide the field of work into the three main divisions already indicated, 
and will deal with them, for convenience, in the following order:—(i) The 
encouragement of research workers; (ii) The organization of research by 
industries; and (iii) The organization of national research. : 
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