The Role of the Institute

Extract

When, last year, you did me the honour of electing me your President you gave me the duty, and the privilege, of composing and delivering a Presidential Address. It does not lie within my abilities to make a grand survey of the present state of any great and important navigational development—such as might fittingly form the central theme of such an Address, and which has, in fact, been so admirably treated by my predecessors in this office. I have, however, been privileged to serve on the inner councils of the Institute since the earliest days of its conception, and feel that I may be in a position to take the Institute of Navigation itself as a central theme. I do so at this time particularly because the by-laws of the Institute quite rightly operate to ensure that no one person shall remain on the Council indefinitely and I must be the last to have such continuous service since the foundation. But there is a more cogent reason: the Institute was founded in the enthusiasm of the immediate post-war application of war-time navigational methods to civil use, and its precise role was deliberately left vague. It will be my object this afternoon to examine the extent to which the Institute is fulfilling its initial purpose and, on the basis of seven years' experience, how it can best play its part in the future.