§ 35. Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLEasked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department what are the duties of the Bureau for Limitation of International Exhibitions; what is its composition; where is it situated; and what proportion of the total cost is represented by the contribution of £500 contained in the Civil Estimates for the current year?
§ Mr. GILLETTThe functions of the International Exhibitions Bureau will be to see that the provisions of the Convention relating to International Exhibitions, signed at Paris in November, 1928, are duly carried out. The Bureau will not be set up until after the Convention itself comes into force, which it will not do until it has been ratified by at least seven of the signatory countries. (Hitherto only one country has formally 2622 ratified the Convention.) The Bureau will be controlled by an administrative council composed of members appointed by the contracting countries who ratify the Convention. The seat of the Bureau is, by the terms of the Convention, to be fixed at the first meeting of the administrative council, which is to be convened at Paris by the French Government in the year following the coming into force of the Convention. The budget of the Bureau has been provisionally fixed at £4,000 sterling.
§ Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLEIn view of the hon. Member's reply, may I ask what useful purpose is being served by the continuance of this bureau?
§ Mr. GILLETTOne of the principal advantages is to try and secure, if it is possible, that there shall not be so many of these exhibitions.
§ Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLEDoes the hon. Member think that it is worth the money we are paying for it?
§ Mr. GILLETTWe are not paying the whole of this £4,000.