Conservation and Development of Natural Resources in the Future
This subject received our earnest attention. We considered that the various Governments of the Empire should take steps to secure the development and utilisation of their natural wealth on a well considered scheme, and that to do this, a preliminary survey was needed of the relation between Empire production and Empire requirements. No such survey, as far as we knew, had yet been undertaken, but in the Memorandum and Tables relating to the Food and Raw Material Requirements of the United Kingdom, which we submitted to His Majesty in 1915, the Commission had made an effort, not without some measure of success, in this direction. We regarded it as vital that the Empire’s supplies of raw material and commodities essential to its safety should be, as far as possible, independent of outside control, and made suggestions which aimed at effecting this object. We recommended that the survey mentioned above should be made by an Imperial Development Board, which should be entrusted with the whole subject.