Imperial Committee on Economic Consultation and Co-operation

Report, proceedings and memoranda of the Imperial Committee on Economic Consultation and Co-operation, as well as notes of the oral evidence taken by the Committee between 15 February and 10 March 1933

Arranged by volume number

The report of the Imperial Committee on Economic Consultation and Co-operation can also be found in the Parliamentary Papers at IOR/V/4/SESSION 1932-33 VOL 11. An Economic Department Collection file on the Committee can be found at IOR/L/E/9/267.

Unrestricted

The Imperial Committee on Economic Consultation and Co-operation was convened by the Government of Canada in accordance with a resolution of the Imperial Economic Conference held at Ottawa in 1932. The Committee was appointed to consider the means of facilitating economic consultation and co-operation between the Governments of the Commonwealth, including a survey of the functions, organisation, and financial bases of the agencies specified in the report of the Committee of the Conference dealing with methods of economic co-operation, and an examination of what alterations or modifications, if any, in the machinery for such co-operation within the Commonwealth were desirable. The agencies specified were the Imperial Economic Committee, the Imperial Shipping Committee, the Empire Marketing Board, the Executive Council of the Imperial Agricultural Bureau, the Imperial Institute, the Imperial Institute of Entomology, the Imperial Mycological Institute, the Imperial Communications Advisory Committee, the Oversea Mechanical Transport Council, the Imperial Forestry Institute and the Empire Timbers Committee. The Committee was also asked to make mention of the Bureau of Hygiene and Tropical Diseases, the Wool Industries Research Association, the Empire Cotton Growing Corporation and the Standing Committee on Empire Forestry. The Committee was made up of the following representatives of each of the participating Governments: Dr. O.D. Skelton (Chairman) and Lieutenant-Colonel G.P. Vanier (Canada), Sir Horace Wilson and Major-General Sir Fabian Ware (United Kingdom), F.L. McDougall and John Sanderson (Australia), Sir Thomas Wilford and R.S. Forsyth (New Zealand), J.H. Dimond (Union of South Africa), J.W. Dulanty (Irish Free State), Lord Morris and W.C. Job (Newfoundland), Sir Atul Chatterjee and Sir Padamji Ginwala (India), J.W. Downie (Southern Rhodesia), and Sir John Shuckburgh (Colonial Empire, nominated by the UK Government). The Committee appointed a joint secretariat consisting of Francis Hemming (United Kingdom), L.B. Pearson (Canada) and P. Liesching (United Kingdom). The Committee met for the first time on 14 February 1933 at Canada House in London, with subsequent meetings being held at 2 Whitehall Gardens, London. It held twenty-three meetings in total, and met for the last time on 11 April 1933. The Committee first invited each of the agencies to submit a précis setting out their respective constitutions, functions and financial bases, and then invited a representative from each institution to give oral evidence before the Committee. Sir John Fabian, as the Vice-Chairman of the Imperial War Graves Commission, was also invited to provide information regarding the financial and administrative organisation of that institution. The Committee signed its report on 11 April 1933.