the Hon. E. T. Tirikatene as Chairman and Mr. A. L. Poole, Assistant Director of the New Zealand Forest Service as Deputy Chairman. Part of the sessions was atended by the Director of Forestry and by the Prime Minister, several Cabinet Ministers and Members of Parliament, representing the Opposition. The proceedings on the first day consisted of the presentation of statements by delegates, and practically all of these, if they did not exceed 2,000 words, were supplied in typescript. On the second day these statements were discussed under the headings:—

My contribution to the discussion was to elaborate, at the request of the Chairman, the submission made urging the setting up of a permanent conservation research council or similar body to ensure collation of research results, evaluate research techniques and supervise co-ordination.

In his summing up the Chairman stated that consideration would be given to this submission in any recommendations arising from the Conference. I consider that it will be necessary for the Royal Society to follow very carefully any plans made for the constitution of such a body. It seems to me evident that, while Government departments must often have the last word in deciding policy, there is too much tendency for them to have the first word as well, and that many of the research projects carried out within the departments are kept too watertight for too long. It was my impression from the statements on research projects supplied at the Conference that there had been too little effective consultation in the early stages of planning research programmes, especially in the use of poisons. The most serious trend apparent in the official departmental statement on research was seen in statements made regarding the work of two biologists whose views, based on extensive research in New Zealand or overseas, were not accepted by the New Zealand Forest Service as a useful guide to policy. The disturbing feature of the statement was not that the Forest Service chose to disagree, but that it took the form of derogatory remarks on the qualifications of the biologists concerned. These could have been challenged as inaccurate, although I did in fact at the meeting challenge them as irrelevant, stating that the quality of research work must be judged on its compiled or published results, and that any employing authority, governmental or otherwise, has a duty to examine the results of such research and criticise it on its merits. In the statement presented there was no evidence that this had been done I consider that the criticism of views expressed at conferences and official policy in the application of research, which are embodied in our statement to the Minister of Forests, were justified by the attitudes shown at this Conference in the matters mentioned above. In other respects the submissions were informative, and there was evidence of an encouraging desire to tackle the problems of noxious animals in a rational way, with an overall desire to preserve natural resources in a healthy state.

R. A. Falla