IMPERIAL INSTITUTE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 45, 22 February 1923, Page 4

IMPERIAL INSTITUTE

HIGH COMMISSIONER'S VIEWS

MEETING OF EXECUTIVEi

(PROH OCR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

LONDON, 9th January.

This afternoon there is being held a meeting of the executive of the Impel ial Institute under the chairmanship of the Duke of Devonshire, Secretary of State for the Colonies. At the last Imperial Conference it was decided to ask the Dominions to increase their grant to the Institute. This was done by the Dominions, and the money has been used to wipe off a debt. Now, however, the Institute is in a position to expand, and to be of real value to the Dominions and to the Empire as a whole. Sir James Allen, as head of the New Zealand Committee, has studied the question of the Imperial Institute with great thoroughness, and he feels that largely ovnng to the apathy of the Dominions themselves its usefulness has dedined. He feels that it could be made <-f very real value-as a clearing house i.F_ all Empire products if it could be raised from its rather moribund condition. Recently there has been a suggestion that the War Museum, which is at present in the Crystal Palace, should be housed in the Institute. This has been turned down. Now, however, there is a suggestion that a new building for the war trophies should be erected in such a position as to shut out the light from Imperial Institute rooms. This is a project which the High Commissioner will vigorously oppose this afternoon.

Moreover, Sir James considers that the Mineral Resources Bureau, set up during the war, and still retained at considerable cost, should be merged into the Institute, and he has advised Mr. Massey not to continue the Dominion grant to the bureau if this is not done. Further, the Entomological Bureau and the Mycological Bureau, both doing good work, Sir James considers should be a part of the Imperial Institute or closely connected with it. There is a great future for the Institute if it is only run on the right lines. At present it is under the control of the Colonial Office, which in itself is not a good thing. If it is to be the success it could be, and a centre for up-to-date information concerning the produce and trade of all the Dominions and colonies, a radical change will have to take place in its management, and the representatives of the Dominions will have to take a more active and serious part of its control.