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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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32. If the above increases are accepted the Committee think that Professor Dunstan might be invited to submit for consideration any anggestions which he thinks it necessary to make with regard to the salaries of the junior members of the Scientific and Technical Staff, including those employed in the Exhibition Galleries.

39. The Committee also consider that the post of Secretary to the Director rendered vacant by the resignation of Mr. Bosanquet should be filled as soon as possible. If an early appoint ment is impracticable, the Committee recommend that an allowance which might he retrospective in effect should be made to Mr. Hedgeland, the Assistant Secretary, for the period during which he remains single-handed.

34. In connection with the question, of the allocation of the work of the staff the Committee gave consideration to the criticisms contained in the Final Report of the Dominions Royal Commission of the existing arrangement whereby the Director is at once not only a member of the Executive Council but also its Chief Scientific Expert and its Head Administrative Officer. Also, the possibility was considered of providing greater opportunity for the senior members of the Scientific Staff to engage in work more fully suited to their special qualifications and partaking less of the nature of administration and the supervision of routine work. To keep Scientific and Administrative functions as separate as possible may well be regarded as an ideal arrangement, but the practical difficulty of keeping them so separated has been experienced in other institutions of a scientific character, and in any case the Committee do not feel able at the present time to recommend any material modification of the existing arrangement, Moreover, the work performed at the Institute, and the objects towards which it is directed, are not in their nature by any means purely scientific, and the close relation of the scientific to the techno- logical and commercial sides of the work appears to the Committee to make "water-tight" system specially difficult of attainment in the case of the Imperial Institute.

II.

any

1. The attention of the Committee was specially directed by the Secretary of State to the question of the recognition of the scientific work of the staff of the Institute. The records of their work as members of the staff are contained principally in the Bulletin but also in certain other publications, e.g., the Miscellaneous series of Colonial Reports presented to Parliament. It should be noted that it is explicitly stated on the title-page of the Bulletin that it is edited by the Director and prepared by the Scientific and Technical Staff of the Imperial Institute and by other contributors. That is to say, the Director does not take the sole credit for the work done for the Bulletin. The members of the Scientific Staff were questioned specially upon this point, and none had any complaints to make. One member said that in recent years the senior members of the Scientific and Technical Staff had had no time for scientific research of their own, and the amount of such work done even by the rest of the staff had been much reduced. Two others in their evidence confirmed this statement, and added that, in the earlier days when they had time for some research work, there had been no difficulty so far as they were concerned about the publication of the results. A fourth said that on joining the staff he had been given to understand that he would have opportunities for research, but that with the growth of the work no such opportunities had offered themselves. In no case did members of the staff mention the absence of opportunity for research as a grievance. More than one of them remarked in their evidence that the Institute could not offer much prospect to a man seeking purely soientific distinction, but that it did offer good opportunities to one who aimed, for example, at an appointment of a scientific character in a manufactory. The Committee appreciate that it might improve their chances of obtaining lucrative posts of this kind if the reports in the Bulletin involving more elaborate research could appear under the name of the officers who performed the work. Such work, however. frequently passes through more than one pair of hands, and the distribution of the credit for the complete result presents difficulties which are familiar enough to those connected with scientific institutions. On the whole, the Committee are satisfied that the impersonal presenta- tion of results adopted in the Bulletin, for which precedents are supplied by the practice of analogous institutions, is a fair method of procedure.

We desire to express our appreciation of the courtesy, tact and efficiency with which Mr. O. G. R. Williams has discharged the duties of Secretary to the Committee.

18th April, 1918.

W. A. S. HEWINS.

T. L. HEATH.

JAMES J. DOBBIE.

Printed for the Use of the Colonial Office.

MISCELLANEOUS

No. 339.

Confidential.

CONTROL OF OLEAGINOUS PRODUCE AFTER THE WAR.

MEMORANDUM.

The task of considering what measures will be necessary for the control in the British Empire of oleaginous produce during the first 12 months after the end of the war is exceptionally difficult on account of the following factors :-

(a) The number of oil seeds and oila involved. (b) The number of countries in which they are produced.

(c) The number of purposes for which the oils are used.

(d) The fact that many oils are interchangeable, and that of these some are interchangeable for several or all purposes, while others are interchangeable only for one purpose.

(e) The differences in the relative amounts of the oil and oil cake produced from the

oil seeds and the different values as food for animals of the oil-cakes.

() The fact that oil seeds-and to a lesser extent oils are bulky and require a large amount of shipping tonnage; that the main problem during the war has been not how to purchase enough oils or oil seeds, but how to ship them to the United Kingdom or other country where they were needed; and that any completely satisfactory solution of the problem now under consideration would require a knowledge of what the shipping position will be for the 12 months after the conclusion of hostilities, and what degree of Government control, if any, of the use of British and Allied shipping will be retained during the whole or a part of that period.

(g) The effect which the cessation of hostilities will have on the demand for

oleaginous produce.

2. The more important oil seeds and oils and the countries in which they are chiefly produced for export on a large scale may for present purposes be given as :-

(1) Seeds, Nuts, and Kernels.

Castor seed-mainly from India.

Copra from Ceylon, India, Malay Peninsula, Dutch East Indies, Zanzibar, Philip-

pines, and Pacific Islands. Cotton-seed--from Egypt, India.

Ground-nuts--decorticated from India, Nigeria, and China; undecorticated from the

Gambia and Senegal.

Linseed-from the Argentine, India, Russia, and Canada.

Palm kernels from West Africa, chiefly Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

Rape seed-from India, Russia, China, and Roumania.

Sesame from India and China and to a small extent from the Sudan, East Africa

Protectorate, and Nigeria.

Soya beans from China and Japan.

(20294-2.) Wt. 39519-189, 100, 19/18. DS. G. 1.