standard by the issue of labels satisfying and perhaps more than satisfying the requirements of the law. We should regard any label as adequate for the purposes of the scheme which we have outlined if it were in one of the forms which we exhibit :— 204. In the separate Reports which we append on the several different fruits we set out our recommendations in detail in regard to marking. In shaping these recommendations we have sought not to impose on the retailer duties which he cannot easily perform. In each case where we have recommended marking of the fruit when exposed for sale we have satisfied ourselves that the retailer has means of knowing the origin of the fruit. 205. In order to assist the retailer in introducing the new system we recommend that the Executive Commission should distribute labels bearing the words "Empire Produce" and Foreign Produce" in the form suggested above. The label for Empire goods might be printed in blue on a white background with a red border. If it was thought desirable there might be an Emblem upon the Empire label. Whether this and other expedients may or may not be practicable must be left to the decision of the Executive Commission when they have obtained the necessary experience. 206. As an appendix to our First Report we reprinted certain sections of the Report of the Merchandise Marks Committee of 1920. One of these sections related to prosecutions for infringements of the law and drew attention to the necessity of making provision for easy remedy when breaches occurred. We observe that in the Bill now before Parliament provision is made, in the case of foodstuffs, for the initiation of legal proceedings by local authorities. It appears to us that the motive for such proceedings is national rather than local and we think therefore that power might be given to the Executive Commission to pay the expenses of local authorities in test cases. 58785 C XXXI.-Research. 207. In our First Report we drew attention to the need of research for solving the problems of food supply from the Empire. We envisaged the possibility of an Imperial Research Service to consist of men who, by moving from point to point, should become familiar with what is essentially a single problem although involving great geographical distances, namely, the preparation of foodstuffs for carriage, the preservation of these foodstuffs during carriage, and the best conditions for their storage. on arrival in the Home country. We recommended that considerable sums of money should be utilised by the Executive Commission on large scale experiments both on board ship and ashore. We also recommended that grants should be made to what we might describe as fundamental scientific research in the laboratory, and we specially mentioned the extension of the Low Temperature Research Station at Cambridge. 208. In the present Report we are concerned only with fruit, and in regard to this we think it desirable to enter into some detail. It appears to us useful to draw a distinction for practical purposes, although such a distinction cannot be a sharp one, between fundamental research and applied research. To a very considerable extent fundamental research in the United Kingdom is associated with higher education. It is conducted in more cases than not by professors and students in University laboratories. Such investigators are naturally interested in pushing as far as they can along the main roads into the unknown. They desire to increase human insight into such problems as the constitution of matter and the processes of life. But in the course of the evidence which we have taken we have been impressed by the fact that such investigators, hungry for scientific theory, are not always interested in what we venture to describe as applied research-the determination, that is to say, of which of the several known facts or processes may be pertinent to a given case of agricultural or manufacturing importance. There are many problems connected with preservation, canning, and drying fruit which have not been solved, although they probably involve no new scientific principles, but merely the diagnosis of the conditions present and the application of remedies which will be obvious once these conditions have been analysed. We have been told for instance of refrigerating plant which failed for lack of ventilation. The maker of that plant was ignorant of the fact that fruit, when removed from the tree, is for a considerable time still a living breathing organism. Similarly, much of the present research into the subject of vitamins is unknown to those engaged in canning and drying fruit, with the result that the important vitamin qualities may be largely destroyed in the process of preservation. 209. The remedy for the neglect of applied research would seem to be the association of such investigation with industry rather than with education. It is impossible to have too much. fundamental research and the stimulus which it gives to higher education cannot be over-estimated. What we wish to see is not a diversion of the fundamental investigators from their chosen tasks, but an increase in the total volume of research. In the United States of America the fruit producers' organisations make use of their co-operation not merely for trade but also for research. The Californian Fruit Growers' Exchange maintains an extensive and costly Citrus Research Station in California devoted to solving the problems with which the grower is faced in producing and marketing his fruit. Within the Empire, however, fruit producers' organisations have not as yet reached a comparable stage, and we think that the Executive Commission can, and should, render assistance in this matter which brooks of no delay. Year after year extensive losses affecting producer and consumer alike are suffered, simply because the best methods of production, the best methods of carriage, and the best conditions of storage have not been discovered or applied. 210. One point, however, we would emphasise in connection with any undertaking of this nature by the Executive Commission. It is in the highest degree important to rouse and maintain the interest of those who are engaged in the trades on behalf of which the research is being undertaken. It is they who can from their practical experience formulate the questions which research must answer, and it is they who will have to apply in daily practice the results of that research. The producer, the railway company, the shipping company, the cold storage company have all something to contribute in the way of knowledge based on practical experience. 211. In the tropical regions of the Empire there is especial need for the assistance in this matter of the Executive Commission. With certain exceptions the Colonies and Protectorates are as yet too little developed and their local communities have accumulated too little wealth for them to be in a position to undertake research except on a Government basis. The Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad and the Amani Research Station in East Africa are available for the prosecution of special investigations, such as those indicated in our separate Report on Bananas and to these researches the Executive Commission might give assistance. 212. In the sub-tropical portions of the Empire also there is great room for research into the problems of fruit. We trust, therefore, that the Governments of Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa will strengthen some existing institutions to the point that they may be regarded as Central Stations where problems of research proposed by the Executive Commission or by the pertinent producers' organisations may be investigated. The position in Canada is somewhat special. The scientific problems of fruit production there are much the same as those in the United States. Research is on a great scale in the United States and the Canadian research system is naturally associated closely 58785 C 2 with the greater American system. None the less we hope that in any general scheme initiated by the Executive Commission the co-operation will be secured of Canadian scientists working at the various horticultural stations in the Dominion. 213. The problems of transport and of storage in the Home country may perhaps be regarded as the special province to which the Executive Commission should devote attention. Promising experimental work has been done at Cambridge on the substitution of gas storage for low temperature storage of fruit. We think that the Executive Commission should encourage experiments on these and similar lines. Our attention has also been drawn to work which is being done at the University of Liverpool with the idea of rendering dormant fruit which has ripened on the tree instead of spreading the ripening process over the period of transport. We attach as Appendix II to this Report a short Memorandum by Dr. Franklin Kidd of the Low Temperature Research Station at Cambidge giving an account of the various investigations which are at present being conducted into fruit at Cambridge, with some indication of the stage which has been reached in each inquiry, and the further stages which remain to be undertaken. 214. Apart from scientific research there is also the important question of economic research. There is, for instance, the determination and reduction of the risks of deterioration of produce in transit. This is particularly true in regard to the transport and marketing of fruit. It is a matter closely connected with the financing of produce on its way to market, a matter of great importance to the producers Overseas. By reducing the costs of marketing it should also, without damaging producers, have a tendency to lower prices, thus conferring a benefit on the consumer in the United Kingdom. A continuous investigation with this object might be undertaken by the Executive Commission with very great advantage. There should be a system of reporting on the condition in which consignments of fruit reach the market and where there is prima facie reason an immediate inspection with a view to scientific and economic record should be carried out. XXXII. Fruit Intelligence Service. 215. In the course of our survey of the fruit industries of the Empire, we have been impressed with the need for some method whereby early and reliable intelligence on crop prospects of competing countries and of their probable exports, and other kindred information might be made available to producers in the various parts of the Empire. It seems to us that the Executive Commission might render a valuable service at very little cost by collecting and disseminating such intelligence. We are aware that there are in existence in the United Kingdom official channels through which the greater part of the desired information can be obtained -in particular the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Department of Overseas Trade. There are also official sources of statistical data such as the International Institute of Agricultural Statistics at Rome. We are therefore of opinion that the Executive Commission would not find it necessary to create any elaborate organisation. It should suffice if an officer were appointed charged with the duty of collating available information and arranging for its dissemination. It would probably be found necessary to add in certain respects to the information already available, but we have no doubt that existing channels could be largely used for this purpose. 216. The arrangements which we are recommending the Executive Commission to make would result in the collection of information and statistics from all existing sources. arrange with the Meteorological Office for regular and timely intelligence as to weather conditions in the chief fruit producing countries of the world, and through the Department of Overseas Trade for such crop reports by cable or despatch as might be considered desirable in the interest of the producers and of the several trades. It would supply the Commercial Officers of the High Commissioners for the Dominions and India and the equivalent officers for the various Colonies and Protectorates with prompt news pertinent to production in their respective countries. It would also make such information available to the London representatives of the producers' organisations. By one channel or the other this news would then be passed on to the producers Overseas. 217. The same organisation might also be used by the Executive Commission for the transmission to the producers' organisations of reports on the progress made in publicity and research. We consider it in the highest degree desirable that the interest of the producer should be maintained in the work undertaken by the Executive Commission on his behalf. If he be so interested he will be stimulated to co-operate with the publicity campaign by improving his methods of production, and he will be the more ready to apply the results of research upon his own farm, orchard, or vineyard. XXXIII.-The Executive Commission and the Imperial Economic Committee. 218. In our First Report we proposed the setting up of a body, to which we gave the provisional title of an "Executive Commission," to carry out certain of the recommendations put forward in that Report. We have had to consider in relation to the marketing of fruit the functions which we had conceived at the time of that Report as likely to attach to that Commission. If that body is to influence the marketing of Overseas produce effectively it must have freedom to correlate the various elements of its policy in a business-like way. It is clearly useless to advertise any commodity unless adequate supplies are forthcoming. It is more than useless to advertise unless those 58785 C 3 |