COMMERCIAL  INTELLIGENCE  COMMITTEE  :

5

Application  of  Funds—Commercial  Missions.
At  a  meeting  of  the  Committee,  held  in  December  1901,  a  Sub-Committee
was  appointed  to  consider  and  report  as  to  the  best  means  of  utilising  the  funds
alluded  to  above,  by  means  of  commercial  missions  or  otherwise,  and  the
following  gentlemen,  viz.,  Mr.  Llewellyn  Smith,  Mr.  Brittain,  Mr.  Holderness,
Sir  William  Holland,  and  Sir  Albert  Rollit,  with  Mr.  Worthington,  the
Principal  of  the  Intelligence  Branch,  were  appointed  as  members  of  this  body.
This  Sub-Committee,  after  having  held  several  meetings,  and  procured  a
good  deal  of  statistical  and  other  information,  with  special  reference  to  trade
conditions  in  Siberia  and  Persia,  made  three  reports  to  the  Committee.
The  first  of  these,  laid  before  the  Committee  at  a  meeting  in  March  1902,
was  merely  an  interim  report.  In  the  second,  presented  at  a  meeting  in
November  1902,  they  recommended—(1)  the  despatch  of  a  commercial
mission  to  Siberia,  to  be  conducted,  with  the  consent  of  the  Foreign  Office,
by  Mr.  H.  Cooke,  British  Commercial  Agent  at  Moscow,  with  a  view  to
obtain  a  full  report  on  matters  of  interest  to  British  trade  and  enterprise
in  that  region.  It  was  proposed  that  the  mission  should  extend  over  a  period
of  about  six  months—to  commence  as  soon  as  the  winter  was  over—and  that
a  sum  of  500/.  should  be  set  aside  from  the  Committee’s  funds  to  defray  the
travelling  and  incidental  expenses  of  the  mission.  (2)  That  it  would  be
desirable  for  a  similar  mission  to  be  despatched  to  Persia,  a  definite  proposal
in  this  respect  being  deferred  to  a  subsequent  report.  (3)  That  His  Majesty’s
Consuls  in  the  principal  trading  centres  abroad  should  be  supplied  with
trade  directories  of  British  manufacturing  and  commercial  firms  at  an
estimated  cost  of  about  250l.  per  annum,  and  that  the  Treasury  should
be  asked  to  sanction  this  expenditure.  And  (4)  that  machinery  should  be
set  up  in  the  self-governing  Colonies,  analogous  to  that  established  by  the
Foreign  Office  in  various  foreign  countries,  by  the  appointment  of
Commercial  Agents—South  Africa  and  Australia  being  specially  mentioned
as  being  Colonies  in  which  this  was  particularly  desirable.  It  was  suggested
that  a  sum  of  500Z.  a  year,  subsequently  increased  to  £600,  should  be  set
aside  by  the  Committee  for  the  first  two  or  three  years  towards  defraying
the  expense  involved  by  this  last  recommendation.  These  recommendations
were  agreed  to,  and  the  commercial  mission  to  Persia  was  entrusted  to
Mr.  H.  W.  Maclean,  late  of  the  Imperial  Bank  at  Teheran.  The  total
cost  of  this  mission,  including  travelling,  remuneration,  and  all  other  charges,
was  put  at  1,050/.

Board  of  Trade  Mission  to  South  Africa.
It  will  be  recollected  that  at  about  the  same  time  that  the  Committee
arrived  at  these  decisions  the  Board  of  Trade  had  thought  it  advisable,  in
view  of  the  revival  of  trade  in  South  Africa  following  the  conclusion  of  the
war  and  the  desirability  of  retaining  as  large  a  share  as  possible  of  that
trade  for  the  Mother  Country,  to  despatch  a  Commercial  Commissioner  to
this  quarter,  Mr.  Henry  Birchenough,  formerly  President  of  the  Macclesfield
Chamber  of  Commerce,  being  selected  for  this  purpose.  Mr.  Birch  enough’s
report  to  the  Board  has  been  published  during  the  last  few  months  and
has  attracted  a  very  considerable  amount  of  attention.  The  mission  was  not
undertaken  at  the  cost  of  the  Committee,  but  advantage  was  taken  of
Mr.  Birchenough’s  visit  to  South  Africa  to  include  in  his  instructions  a
reference  to  the  selection  of  Trade  Correspondents,  Mr.  Birchenough  being
requested  to  ascertain  the  names  of  suitable  persons  who  would  be  willing
to  act  in  this  capacity  for  the  Intelligence  Branch.

Appointment  of  Trade  Correspondents  in  South  Africa.
In  pursuance  of  Mr.  Birchenough’s  recommendations  in  this  connection
five  Trade  Correspondents  have  been  appointed,  who  will,  in  accordance  with
the  Committee’s  decision  mentioned  above,  be  remunerated  during  the  first  two
or  three  years  by  annual  fees  paid  out  of  the  sum  set  aside  by  the  Committee
for  this  purpose.  The  names  of  the  gentlemen  appointed  in  the  various  parts