My dear Prime Minister,

This week I have little of immediate importance to report.

Ministers and Members of the House of Commons are, at this stage
of the session, concentrating on business before the House.

IMPERIAL ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

The Tobacco Report was signed on Tuesday last and yesterday I
managed to get the Timber Report approved by my Sub-Committee and
this report will go before the Main Committee for what might be
described as the report stage on Tuesday next. In order that the
Timber Report may become available in time for the British Empire
Forestry Conference at Canberra in September, Members have been
warned to be prepared for a late sitting and it is my intention to
try and get the report through this stage in the one day. If this
is successful, we ought to be able to make the necessary drafting
alterations and present it for final approval and signature on the
24th July.

The preliminary survey on Agricultural Machinery will, I hope, be
approved by the 31st July, so that the Imperial Economic Committee
will have a very good record of work so far as this session is
concerned.

The Tobacco Report is not of much importance to Australia but the
Timber Report contains a number of useful recommendations and I
think sets out the general position clearly and effectively. We
are going to recommend that the Forest Products Research
Laboratory at Princes Risborough should be given an Imperial
significance through a grant from the Empire Marketing Board and
this recommendation will probably have some effect on the policy
of C.S.I.R. so far as expenditure in Australia in connection with
forest products research is concerned. I have already written to
Rivett [1] to give me an indication of the sort of recommendation
we are likely to make.

EMPIRE MARKETING BOARD

At the last meeting of the Research Grants Committee the large
application from C.S.I.R. for a grant towards the establishment of
Tillyard' [2] entomological schemes was approved. This application
has given me a good deal of worry because, firstly, it was very
inclusive, the proposal practically amounting to the E.M.B.

sharing, on a 50-5o basis, the whole of C.S.I.R. expenditure on
entomology and, secondly, Tillyard himself had framed the original
application in such a way as to ignore the Imperial Bureau of
Entomology and the new Parasite Laboratory established by the
Empire Marketing Board grant at Farnham Royal. Fortunately Dr.

Marshall [3], the Director of the Imperial Bureau of Entomology,
has behaved in a most charitable way and Tillyard has amended his
scheme so as to bring the Imperial Bureau into the picture, so far
as the collection of parasites on this side of the world is
concerned, with the result that certain economies are effected and
a much more efficient scheme will probably result.

The Research Grants Committee has approved of the scheme on the
following basis:-

The Empire Marketing Board to find 50% of the capital cost, 50% of
the annual cost for the first 2 years and then a slightly smaller
proportion for the next 2 years and about 25% in the 5th year.

I had, some months ago, sounded Rivett about this idea of a
diminishing annual grant and found that he quite concurred.

The Research Grants Committee's recommendation will come formally
before the next full Board Meeting on the 25th July, when I have
no doubt that it will be approved. This grant will mean that the
E.M.B. will become responsible for a contribution of between
50,000 and 60,000.

The main difficulty in actually putting the scheme into operation
will be the acute world shortage of first class entomologists and
I am afraid that we shall have great difficulty in attracting the
men of the necessary calibre for the senior positions unless we
are prepared to pay more money than the Council has at present
envisaged. [4]

PASTORAL RESEARCH

I am looking forward with interest to the return of Dr. Orr. [5] I
shall hope to see him when he arrives in London but shall also try
and arrange to go up to Aberdeen in August to have a really long
conference with him and obtain, in the fullest detail, his whole
impressions. Orr has written to me once or twice and Major Elliot
[6] has passed on to me the letters which he has received. From
these sources I gather that Orr is convinced that great and almost
spectacular improvements in the condition of stocksheep, dairy
cattle and pigs-can be achieved in Australia without further fresh
research but by means of the application of existing knowledge to
Australian conditions. It seems to me that here is an opportunity
which you and the C.S.I.R. might seize with the very greatest
advantage to Australia and with considerable benefit to the
Government and to the Council.

I have no doubt that Orr has expressed himself quite clearly while
in Australia but as his visit was so very hurried, I shall try,
after a discussion with him, to forward a number of practical
suggestions. I rather gather that Orr, while impressed with the
scientific quality of Brailsford Robertson' [7] work at Adelaide,
considers that this long range of purely scientific work will have
little effect on Australian pastoral problems for a number of
years and that immediate improvements can be made from the
scientific results already obtained at Aberdeen, in Kenya and in
other parts of the World.

GENEVA AND ROME

Up to the present I have not had any reaction from you as to my
various letters and reports on the work of the Consultative
Economic Committee at Geneva. There has, indeed, hardly been time.

I am awaiting your comments with very great interest.

One rather immediate and urgent question is the one of the
relationship between the International Institute of Agriculture at
Rome and the League of Nations. This question is likely to be
discussed at the Assembly in Geneva in the latter part of
September and at the General Assembly of the International
Institute of Agriculture at Rome in October.

Should you come to the conclusion that it is desirable that the
British Empire should lay a controlling, directing and perhaps at
the same time restraining hand on the Economic Organization of the
League, you may think it essential that I should go over to Geneva
for a few days during the Assembly to discuss with the Australian
Delegation and with the British people the question of the line of
country that we should really adopt. It is also possible that, if
you generally approve of the line of country which I have been
indicating in my letters on this subject [8], in the event of the
discussions on the relationship between Rome and Geneva coming to
a head, I might suggest that we should for once be effectively
represented at the General Assembly of the International Institute
at Rome. Normally we are represented by a Senior Statistical
Officer of the British Ministry of Agriculture [9]-quite a good
fellow on statistics but hardly the man to tackle de Michelis [10]
and the vested interest of Italy in the Rome Institute. However,
until I learn from you how you are regarding these subjects, it is
not much use my considering the matter much further.

Later

I have just returned from lunching with Sir Ernest Clark [11], one
of the Business Mission. He will prove the member of the Mission
who will give the most attention to detail and particularly to
statistics and printed matter. He was delighted to receive some of
the memoranda which I have prepared and we had a most interesting
talk.

I should imagine that he will be prepared to do an almost
unlimited amount of work, both on board ship and while in
Australia and will, in a large measure, prepare a basis on which
the other members of the Mission will form their opinions.

Yours sincerely,
F. L. MCDOUGALL