demand. The secondary industries are mainly established in the
great manufacturing States of New South Wales and Victoria, so
that it is to be anticipated that the successful development of
primary industries in the other States will, so far as its indirect
results are concerned, be reflected in increased immigration into
New South Wales and Victoria. It follows that the primary pro-
ducing States are likely to have difficulty in absorbing their
prescribed quotas of migrants, though the obligation to do so will
remain upon them, while on the other hand the manufacturing
States being able to point to the increased immigration within their
borders will be able to satisfy their obligations in the matter with-
out difficulty, really as the result of what has been done in other
States.
39. These considerations lead us to suggest that it might be well
if it were possible to secure the concurrence of all the Governments
concerned, that is to say, the British Government, the Common-
wealth Government and the State Governments, in such an amend-
ment of the Agreement as would provide that the funds made
available under it might be used not only for schemes involving
the acceptance of specific numbers of migrants by the individual
States, but also for work calculated to promote migration into
Australia generally.
40. This question raises a subject which appears to us to be of
the greatest importance and to go far beyond the implications of
the £34,000,000 Agreement itself. We have been much struck by
what we have seen and heard of the comparatively small degree to
which intensive use is made of the land already in occupation in
Australia. Schemes are being projected for extensive develop-
ment by pushing railway and road construction at heavy capital
cost into territory as yet unsettled, while it would seem that more
Intensive use of land already settled or partially settled might, at
far less cost, be productive of a greater increase in population and
in wealth production than the extensive schemes are likely to
yield.
41. We enter here upon the wide field of scientific research and
of the increase of technical knowledge as applied to wealth produc-
tion. We have already said that we cordially welcome the estab-
lishment of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in
this sphere. Like the Development and Migration Commission in
its sphere, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research with
its able and energetic personnel is capable of being a nucleus for
the combination and co-ordination of the scientific and technical
knowledge already available in many quarters in the different
States of Australia and a potent force for the increase of the sum
of that knowledge through the work of its several scientific sections,
“ach under a highly qualified head and each acting in harmony
With all other existing institutions having the same object, such
a8 the State Departments of Agriculture, the Universities and the
Possible
ymendment
of the
Aoreement.
Intensive as
against
axtensive
levelop-
ment,
Che Council
‘or Scientific
and Indust-
rial Research
ind the
nerease of
echnical
znowledge.