30
Publication Office at 27, Elvaston Place, S.W. It is with great satisfaction that I am able to inform you that the Bureau has made a most successful start with the work which it intends to undertake, and the general opinion as to its value may be gauged from the fact that the Imperial Government, the Indian Government, and every Colonial Government outside Tropical Africa have agreed to contribute to its maintenance.
5. I should be glad to receive an early reply to this despatch.
26104
SIR,
No. 31.
I have, &c.,
L. HARCOURT.
COLONIAL OFFICE to TREASURY.
[Answered by No. 41.]
Downing Street, 1 September, 1913. I AM directed by Mr. Secretary Harcourt to refer to your letter of the 10th of May, 1909, in which the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury sanctioned the pay- ment of an annual contribution of £1,000 for five years from Imperial funds on behalf of the Exchequer-aided Protectorates in Tropical Africa towards the Entomo- logical Research Committee, on condition that a like amount was forthcoming from the self-supporting Colonies in West Africa.
2. The first payment was made in respect of the financial year 1909-10, so that the period of five years for which the annual contribution was promised expires this financial year, and it is necessary to consider the question of its renewal.
3. Mr. Harcourt has no hesitation in saying that the action of his predecessor in setting up a Committee to organise entomological investigation in Tropical Africa has been fully justified by the results achieved in the short time that the Entomo- logical Research Committee has been in existence. In the report of the Committee which was presented to Parliament in November, 1912† (a copy of which was enclosed in the letter from this Department of the 21st of January last) will be found a statement of the work which is being carried out under its direction. The three main features of the Committee's operations, so far as Tropical Africa is concerned are:-
(1) The employment of two Travelling Entomologists in East and West
Africa.
(2) The publication of a quarterly journal.
(3) The encouragement of officials and other residents to interest themselves
in entomology. It will be useful to give some further details as regards these points.
(1) One of the first steps taken by the Committee was to select two trained entomologists to make a general survey of the Tropical African possessions and to bring home to the officials and others the importance of economic entomology in countries where noxious insects play so large a part in resisting progress, both by their attacks upon man and by their devastation of plants and crops. The Com- mittee were fortunate in obtaining the services of Mr. S. A. Neave and Mr. J. J. Simpson, both of whom have done excellent work. In the first instance, they have been able to make only a preliminary investigation of the insect life of the Colonies and Protectorates which they have visited, although Mr. Neave, having now studied generally the conditions prevailing in the East Africa, Uganda, and Nyasaland Protectorates, is devoting twelve months to a more systematic examination of a restricted area in Nyasaland, and it is proposed that he should follow the same plan in the other two Protectorates later. Mr. Simpson has completed his general survey of the West African Colonies, and on the termination of his leave it is desired that he too should make a more thorough investigation of definite areas. Incidentally, it may be mentioned that these two entomologists have sent home, either directly or indirectly through those whom they have interested in the subject, many tens of thousands of insects, which have been distributed to various institutions, such as the British Museum, Schools of Tropical Medicine, and the Universities, where these
No. 115 in Miscellaneous No. 271.
No. 10 in Miscellaneous No. 231. † [Cd. 6129.]
31
additions to their collections have proved of great value either for record or for instructional purposes. But the term of appointment of Mr. Neave and Mr. Simpson will end in December of this year, when their work is practically only just begun, and it is extremely important that the Committee should be in a position to re-employ them for a further period, to which indeed no definite limit can be placed, so far as the amount of work that remains to be done is concerned, but which for convenience may be put at five years, when the position could be again considered. Unless, how- ever, the contributions which have been made for the past five years are continued, it will apparently be impossible to do this, and what should prove a most useful piece of research will be brought to an abrupt end for lack of the necessary funds.
(2) The quarterly publication of the Committee is known as the Bulletin of Entomological Research, in which appear reports from the Travelling Entomologists and original papers on entomology. It is a publication of value to all who are in any way interested in economic entomology, and the Committee may well be satisfied that the care and labour bestowed on its production have been rewarded by the recognition of the journal by those who are in a position to form a sound opinion on such a matter as being the best publication of its kind in existence.
(3) Little need be said as to the growth of intelligent interest among the Govern- ment officers and other residents of Tropical Africa in economic entomology. In every number of the Bulletin collections of insects are acknowledged from all parts of Africa, while nearly two hundred officials from East and West Africa have attended special courses in entomology-courses, that is, which are voluntary, not compulsory during their leave, at various centres where arrangements have been made for them to receive instruction.
4. No mention has yet been made of the wider organisation known as the Imperial Bureau of Entomology, to which the Lords Commissioners have agreed to contribute £500 from Imperial funds for three years. The objects of the Bureau were fully explained in the correspondence which took place at the time that the Bureau was being founded. The Managing Committee of the Bureau is identical in its composition with the Entomological Research Committee, and, for all practical working purposes, the latter has now been incorporated in the larger organisation, of which Mr. G. A. K. Marshall, the Scientific Secretary of the Entomological Research Committee, is the Director. The funds for Tropical African research, however, amounting to £2,050 per annum (£1,000 from Imperial funds on behalf of the Exchequer-aided Protectorates, £1,000 from the self-supporting Colonies, and £50 from Zanzibar) have so far been kept distinct from those of the Bureau, but the Committee recommend that if the grants are renewed they should be merged in one common fund, as this would tend very greatly to simplification in accounting with- out any countervailing disadvantage. At present certain of the charges debited to the Tropical African research fund are necessarily fixed in a more or less arbitrary manner; for, while it is obvious that all expenses connected with the two Travel- ling Entomologists must be charged against that fund, it is not possible (to take but one instance) to say exactly how much of the time of the Director of the Bureau and his staff is devoted to Tropical African work as apart from that which is performed for the Bureau proper, and consequently it is by no means easy to make anything approaching to an exact division of their salaries as between the two funds. But one common fund is created, difficulties of this nature will cease, and much labour in accounting will be saved. Careful watch will, of course, be kept over the expendi- ture to see that the Tropical African Colonies and Protectorates receive their full share of attention, and a fair return for their contributions. The Entomological Research Committee will thus be merged entirely in the Bureau of Entomology, an arrangement which will have the further advantage of removing a possible source of confusion arising out of the co-existence of two apparently independent bodies both working in London, and both engaged in organising entomological activity in British Dominions and Colonies.
5. Mr. Harcourt fully concurs in the Committee's proposals, and he desires to support most strongly their application for a renewal of the grants for another period of five years. He has no doubt that the West African Colonies will agree to contribute £1,000 for five more years, and he trusts that their Lordships will see their way to renew the grant of £1,000 from Imperial funds on behalf of the Exchequer-aided Protectorates for a similar period, subject to the condition that the same amount is provided by the West African Colonies."
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