HC Deb 30 October 1947 vol 443 cc1071-2
39. Mr. Erroll

asked the President of the Board of Trade in view of the urgent need to disseminate scientific and technical information in Britain, when he will increase the domestic paper ration for scientific and technical periodicals.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Harold Wilson)

Steps are being taken to ensure to journals devoted primarily to original research their full requirements, and I hope to exempt technical periodicals from the reduction which it is necessary to make in the paper available for periodicals generally.

Mr. Erroll

Will the Minister take immediate steps with regard to the British publication "Nature," as more copies of that publication are now available to Russian scientists than to British scientists?

Mr. Wilson

I will take a look at that.

Mr. Wilson Harris

Could the right hon. Gentleman say how a technical periodical can be defined and how a non-technical periodical can make itself sufficiently technical to qualify for the increased ration?