Abstract
LORD BALFOUR presided at the first meeting of the Imperial Conference Research Sub-Committee held on October 25. In his opening speech he re-emphasised the points made in Mr. Amery's address to the Empire delegates the previous week. Research is more important to the British Empire than to any other great power. The Empire in its different parts is confronted with a bewildering variety of problems of almost baffling complexity, the solution of which depends upon the success of the efforts of a considerable body of research workers and the effective coordination of their work. Reference was made to the co-ordinating machinery already developed, in which the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, the Development Commission, the Medical Research Council, and the Royal Society participate. Much of the work undertaken by those bodies is of interest to the Dominions and Colonies, but it is an open question whether the existing machinery is adequate to the needs of the tropical countries of the Empire with their special needs and problems. Representatives of the Dominions followed Lord Balfour with accounts of the efforts being made in their respective countries to apply science to the solution of their particular problems, the representatives of Australia and New Zealand paying warm tributes to the assistance they had received from Sir Frank Heath during his recent visit. Mr. D. T. Chadwick said that the devolution of larger powers to the Provinces in India had been a serious obstacle to the effective co-ordination of research. Mr. Ormsby-Gore, who wound up the discussion, spoke of the isolation of the research workers in tropical colonies of Great Britain, their difficulties of inter-communication, and their dependence on the prosecution of research in the Dominions and Great Britain, and the more effective distribution of the results obtained. There is a scarcity of scientific investigators in the tropics, to remedy which he urged the provision of more highly paid posts such as would induce promising scientific workers to enter the Colonial Service.
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[News and Views]. Nature 118, 668–672 (1926). https://doi.org/10.1038/118668a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/118668a0