BRITISH ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE ON MINERAL RESOURCES

Abstract

THE Conference on Mineral Resources and the Atlantic Charter, held at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine on July 24-25, was convened by the British Association Division for the Social and International Relations of Science and, like the recent conference on agriculture, owed its origin to suggestions made at the Conference on Science and World Order held last September. The fourth clause of the Atlantic Charter promises equal access on the part of all peoples to the natural resources of the world, and as minerals are among the most important of those resources, it was felt that a survey of the situation might clarify ideas; the general state of information as to the distribution and nature of mineral deposits among the public and even, it is to be feared, in higher quarters, being very imperfect. Coal and oil were excluded from the scope of the discussion as requiring separate treatment. Those who have had occasion to examine questions concerning mineral deposits have been impressed by the unsatisfactory condition of the statistical knowledge about them which is available, in spite of excellent isolated efforts, and for that reason prominence was given to this aspect in the resolution which was put by Sir Stafford Cripps and passed at the end of the Conference. After a preamble referring to the Atlantic Charter, this ran: