9.
Empire, Marketing Board would come in, and of course the pros- pect of that would be a great inducement, as everyone likes to feel that if they put up 15s. someone else will put up another 5s. I imagine Sir Donald Cameron is quite right in saying that he would be reluctant to put up a lot of money for a pool, and I think that is even more important than the locality in which the thing is spread. If you can go to the Colonial Government and say,
For a very small fraction of one per cent. of your revenue we can create a really effective pool of higher scientists who can be lent to you free of charge, or at any rate at some fee far below the original cost of their services, with passages backwards and forwards, and pensions provided, and the whole thing is going to have more money than your own total contribu- tions would come to, everyone will really get more than they put in," I should think that might appeal even to parochial-minded Councils in little places. I tried to find out last night what a pool might mean in the way of finance, and I find the total revenues of all the Colonies are at present in the nature of £56.000,000. One per cent. on that is £560,000 a year, and one-fifth of one per cent. is over £100,000 a year. I believe that one-fifth of one per cent. would be a sum which, especially if you got a further contribution from the Empire Marketing Board, would pay for a very substantial staff of research workers, and their passages, and provide either a pension scheme or, possibly better, on the lines suggested by Colonel Carmichael this morning, a provident scheme so that if at any time they wished to go off on specialist work with a private firm or corporation they could step out with their money. I believe that something be- tween one-tenth and one-fifth of one per cent. of revenue would enable us to start on really quite effective lines. With one-quarter of one per cent. I believe you could really start the thing and also subsume some of the existing contributions. I asked the Office to look up for me what was already being contributed to rather kindred subjects, the Imperial Institute, the Trinidad College, the Entomological and Mycological Bureaux, and so on, and I find that all the Colonies together are contributing something like £60,000 to £66,000 towards such objects, that is to say, a There- little over one-tenth of one per cent. of their revenues. fore, if you made it one-fifth, or say one-quarter, of one per cent. of their revenue, you could really let them off their existing contributions for miscellaneous research subjects and build up your nucleus staff on a really substantial basis. It would be inte- resting to know how far the Conference thinks one-quarter of one per cent., which would include a remission incidentally of some existing contributions, would be regarded as an excessive demand by local Councils.
Sir DONALD CAMERON: There must be some territories which at the moment are spending more.
Sir HORACE BYATT: Trinidad contributes to the Imperial College a half of one per cent., which amounts to £8,000 a year approximately.
Mr. ORMSBY GORE: Does it contribute to the Imperial Bureaux of Entomology and Mycology?
Sir HORACE BYATT: Yes-not a very large sum. May I say, now I have the opportunity, that I think Sir Donald Cameron's scheme has a very great deal to commend it, but I think, so far as I can see at the present time, that it will have to be confined to a research staff and not apply to the general staff of the Agricultural Departments. I am thinking particularly of the West Indies at the moment. There we have in all sorts of positions in the Agricultural Department men who, good though they may be, could not, I think, be considered eligible to join an Imperial Agricultural Service. You have to consider the lower ranks, and I should say without doubt that men of the lower ranks are certainly not fit, but it has happened in the past that such men have risen to higher rank in the Agricultural Department, and I have now in mind one in particular who is our entomologist. That is certainly a specialist job which requires
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