§ Mr. J. Johnsonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware that colonial research today is unco-ordinated and dispersed; and if he will set up a British colonial staff college to remedy this.
§ Mr. J. GriffithsI cannot agreed with my hon. Friend that colonial research is unco-ordinated, or that it is dispersed to a greater extent than is necessary and proper. If my hon. Friend will refer to the annual reports on colonial research, he will see that since the war it has been the policy of successive Secretaries of State to encourage the co-ordination of research by the establishment in the Colonies of regional research institutes and organisations. This policy has been applied to all fields, including agriculture, animal health and forestry, medicine, insecticides, tsetse and trypanosomiasis research, fisheries, microbiology and social and economic research, and very considerable progress has been made.
In the Colonial Office, the Research Department is assisted by various specialist advisory research committees consisting of the most eminent scientists 17W in each field, representing a width of experience and knowledge which it would be difficult to surpass. Their task is to advise me on all matters, including coordination, affecting research in their respective fields. In addition, there are attached to the Research Department scientists in the fields of agriculture, medicine and insecticides, who pay frequent visits to Colonial Territories, as, of course, do my fisheries and other specialist advisers. These specialist advisory committees and their sub-committees meet frequently and accounts of their work and of the schemes sponsored by them are given in the annual colonial research reports. The Colonial Research Council, which includes the chairman of all the specialist advisory committees, co-ordinates the work of these committees and advises me on general questions relating to research policy and on matters not falling within the province of any of the specialist committees.
I have therefore no hesitation in saying that the scientific direction of research in the Colonial Empire is as closely coordinated as possible with territories scattered throughout the world. It is of course "dispersed" in the physical sense that work is being done in many different parts of the Colonial Empire. This obviously could not be otherwise. The second part of the Question does not therefore arise.