104
FIRST MEETING HELD ON WEDNESDAY, 14th SEPTEMBER, 1960
In the Chair: Prof G. CassiNis, President
Presentation of the General Report
Prof M. CUNIETTI (Interpretation read by
Miss Togliatti): Resolution number 3 adopted
by the Commission at the end of the Stockholm
Congress recommends the continuation of the
“essais controlés” also in the period 1956/1960,
and asks the President to fix the new rules aided
by the experience already acquired and in prior
consultation with the Commission’s experts.
Moreover in the spirit of the Resolutions
adopted at that time, there were embodied some
fundamental principles intended as a guide to
be followed in the creation of new “essais”. Four
out of the five suggestions contained therein
have been fully respected in the Rules published
in the summer of 1958, namely, the essais’
practical character, the candidates’ freedom to
choose the methods they prefer, the abolition of
the obligation to work on foreign polygons and
the candidates’ obligation to supply a detailed
report of the work done.
On the contrary, the fifth suggestion con-
cerning the increase of discipline and controls
during the work was not added as a part of the
new rules. There were many reasons for doing
this, above all both through the personal con-
tacts and by what has appeared from the Brus-
sels discussion on the rules prepared at first by
the Commission III President and sent out by
circular No. 1. The desire was clearly expressed
to diminish more and more the competitive
character of the essais, giving them instead an
experimental, scientific research appearance in-
spired by mutual trust and in a spirit of full
collaboration.
It is evident, therefore, that severe control
measures could never have agreed with such an
attitude. On the other hand, to increase the
proper control would have meant a considerable
financial burden and would probably present a
scarcely feasible task for the President, if ap-
proached in all seriousness, owing to the dif-
ficulties of effectively carrying it out in all its
stages.
Any type of control ought to have granted a
partial feeling of trust to the organisations carry-
ing out the work, even if only in limited sectors,
and this trust could very well be then extended
also to other sectors without impairing at all the
results. Even exercising a control from afar by
enforcing the periodical sending of measurement
data and of results of calculation would entail
a colossal amount of work. The checking of the
data and calculations is hardly imaginable,
especially in the present day experimental
researches, where so very different methods and
proceedings have to be compared; for instance,
a control of the analytical triangulation during
its execution is, in fact, quite impossible to
conceive and not even justifiable, because of
its very nature the analytical triangulation con-
stitutes an automatic procedure with which we
cannot interfere. Analytical triangulation, there-
fore, exercises by itself an automatic control on
all the research collaborators.
In June, 1958, a circular was sent out to rap-
porteurs, Commission experts, and all the
national societies belonging to the ISP, by
which the directions given in the first Rules were
clearly modified in the manner stated above. All
those who received the circular were invited to
express their opinion, make remarks and suggest
amendments. The first paragraph of the Rules,
where the scientific character of the experiments
is stated, is the following: in accordance with the
Resolutions adopted by the Eighth Congress of
the ISP, Stockholm, July 1956, Commission III
intends to continue the experimental researches
that aroused great interest during the proceeding
four years. These works deal with the highly
topical problem of large blocks of strips. Owing
to the great practical interest of these experi-
ments consideration must be given to the dif-
ferent experimental procedures and attention
must not be limited to a comparison of the
results simply on the basis of the standard errors
in control points.
The aim. of the experiments organised by
Commission III is to provide a vivid and prac-
tical documentation of the different methods of
carrying out the several operational steps for a
map of a given average precision. Thus these
researches exclude anything in the nature of
competition. The President of Commission III
organises the work and watches its various
stages. Persons intending to take part must
undertake to supply their results together with a
detailed description of the methods used, and
shall follow the rules laid down by Commission
III. Finally, the rules conclude with this agree-
ment: "Commission III shall publish all the
reports in the General Report that the Commis-
sion will submit to the Ninth Congress of the