ONE of the bye-products of the new constitution legalised by the Government of India Act of 1919 was the transfer of certain “heads of business,” previously administered by the bureaucratic regime, to the control of popularly elected Ministers in each province. The. subjects so transferred included agriculture, forests, and the development of industries, with, therefore, the scientific and technical services attached to these departments, Realising that “decentralisation of authority and responsibility must necessarily tend to give rise to local variations in policy, apart altogether from those variations that follow local diversity in natural resources,” Sir Thomas Holland, when designing the new Department of Industries and Labour in 1920, elaborated a system which would facilitate concerted action among the provinces while leaving them free to develop in any way that seemed to their respective legislatures best suited to their special needs. The new Ministers were, in the first instance, provided with a monthly circular summarising the information, often of a semi-confidential nature, collected by the Intelligence Branch of the Munitions Board. Out of these circulars grew the agenda of half-yearly conferences, followed by a quarterly Journal and a series of Bulletins suitable for publication.