Notes

Abstract

THE position of scientific men emoloyed in the Government service has long exercised the minds of scientific workers. The responsibility for the National Physical Laboratory and for the Geological Survey has been handed over to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. Kew is still under the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. The Government Chemical Laboratory and the British Museum, with its Natural History Branch at South Kensington, remain distinct institutions for which the Treasury is responsible. All these institutions are largely concerned with the preservation and routine examination of specimens, testing, and the standardisation of methods, and do not serve solely for research. The Ministry of Agriculture has farmed out its research work to institutions such as Rothamsted, the Imperial College of Science and Technology, Cambridge and Oxford, etc.; it still retains, however, on its fisheries side a Research Division. Dissatisfaction has long been felt at the positions, rates of pay, and prospects of promotion in all these offices. Scientific men claim that the positions offered to them should be at least equal in rank, in prospects, and in pay to those offered in the regular Civil Service. The matter came up for discussion at the meetings of several Sections of the British Association at Cardiff. It was referred to the council of the Association, which has now unanimously passed the following resolution and forwarded it to the First Lord of the Treasury:—“That the council considers that no scheme of payment of professional scientific men in the service of the State is satisfactory which places them on a lower level than that of the higher grade of the Civil Service.” It is clear that the Treasury must agree with this resolution if the services of scientific men of the first grade are to be obtained for research purposes.