CO129-496 - Public Offices - 1926 — Page 451

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4. Department of Technology.-Under this department there shall be special laboratories for fuel technology, metallurgical experiment and public assay, material testing and standardisation, and various industrial researches the importance of which needs of no comment.

III-Organisation.

Whatever is the name to be adopted for the institute, it shall consist of a central administrative body destined to assure the co-operation between the various depart- ments above outlined. The Imperial Institute or the Department for Scientific and Industrial Research in England may be taken as models of organisation.

To study and execute the scheme, a special technical committee should be formed with competent experts appointed by the Board of Trustees of the Indemnity Fund. On the completion of their task, the committee shall be reorganised and a permanent governing body is to be formed under such name as Board of Directors, with which will be invested the central and financial control.

The scientific and technical work shall be in the hands of the directors of each department or other sub-organisation. Each department or other sub-organisation is an independent body by itself in its own administration and shall have full freedom to carry on its work to its best ability.

Full encouragement shall be given to and best use shall be made of the existing efficient institutions so as to increase and co-ordinate their activity.

The central and most of the sub-organisations shall preferably be established in and near Peking, where various universities and colleges may utilise the equipment and the exhibition as places of practical study and reference for professors and students. But a number of laboratories or stations may also be established in other suitable places in China.

The institute as a whole must be national in its character, but foreign experts may be appointed when necessary.

IV-Financial Appropriation.

What is the exact financial appropriation needed for adequate execution of the present scheme depends on the concrete plan of the individual departments or other sub-organisations which has yet to be worked out. But some ideas of magnitude can be formed with the following figures.

In England, where many important research institutions have already been in existence, the Department for Scientific and Industrial Research was created by Acts of Parliament in 1916 with an initial grant of £1 million, and a yearly The United States of America spends over expenditure of about £500,000.

1 million gold dollars a year for the geological survey alone, while the Carnegie Institution of Washington has an annual income of 1 million dollars for physical research only. The Japanese Physico-Chemical Institute is endowed with approximately 2 million gold dollars for a period of ten years. Speaking in round figures, and to begin with rather modest scale, an initial grant of 4 million dollars Chinese currency and a yearly appropriation of 2 million dollars seem to be necessary for the proper execution of the present scheme.

1926

DATE

HONG KONG

0.21125

15 NOV 1926

Conf

12

Nov 1926

4791/1/10

CIRCULATION:

.

St. U.S. of S.

U.S. of S.

ar> U.S. of S.

Bretary of State.

Previous Paper

21124

Самой Canton situation

Caulon teli NOSS 112 Nov

MINUTES

M. Clarissack TES

Mr Beckel Tapp) 16/1

MrElis

16111.

Sir Erindle/16

Subsequent Paper

14587/35 48M

11-25 Barrow 12312

K