INAUGURAL PLENARY SESSION 
15 
1 come now to a more cheerful Item. Since our last Congress four years ago nine 
new members have been admitted to the Society through the postal system available in 
our Statutes, and at our Delegates Meeting yesterday three further members were 
admitted. All these twelve members were confirmed at yesterday’s Meeting of the 
Delegates, and I will read them out to you. They are: Burma Survey Department; 
Institute of Topographical and Engineering Surveyors of South Africa; Polish Society 
of Photogrammetry; Director-General of Surveys, Iraq — an individual Member — 
Director of National Mapping, Australia — and individual Member — General Direc 
torate of Mapping, Turkey; Military Geographical Institute, Argentina; Service Géo 
graphique of Tunisia; Service Géographique of Morocco; Sudan Survey Department; 
Geodetic and Cartographic Society, Hungary; Photogrammetric Society, German 
Democratic Republic. I am sure you will wish me on your behalf to give them the 
warmest welcome and hope that they will enjoy their membership of this Society and 
contribute to its welfare. 
I ' 
We come next to an Item which is shown on the Agenda in front of me under 
the majestic-sounding title of President’s Address. I have no great or soul-stirring 
thoughts to put before you, only a few glimpses of the obvious. To give formal expres 
sion to such glimpses seems to be the fate, or perhaps one of the important functions, 
of presidents the world over. However, I am told by those who understand these matters 
that one cannot say a good thing too often, so I take courage. 
First, I wish to speak to you as an individual. I am delighted to see before me so 
many familiar faces; faces of old friends and colleagues with whom I have worked and 
whose hospitality I have enjoyed in many parts of the world. It gives me great personal 
pleasure to welcome you here in London. I also see before me a number of faces which 
are less familiar, even new to me. They equally are welcome, and I am glad to think 
that they too will be forming or enlarging friendships and personal relationships here in 
our Congress of the ISP similar to those which I, myself, have been privileged to enjoy 
over many years. These friendships, as I have said in the short welcome I wrote for 
you in the programme, will help to penetrate some of those barriers which, inevitably, 
separate one mind from another and which are so well worth an effort to penetrate. 
These are barriers due to many and varied circumstances: differences of language; 
differences of culture; habit of mind; habitat — if that is the right word — the very fact 
of dwelling at opposite ends of the world and being physically inaccessible to one 
another in one way or other. I believe that these friendships and exchanges are an im 
portant contribution to the advancement of photogrammetry as well, of course, as being 
of obvious value in other ways. 
Secondly, I should like to speak to you as Chairman of the Congress Board, that 
small group of men who have accepted the responsibility of directing the administrative 
affairs for this Congress. I must tell you how greatly encouraged we have been through 
out this period by the patronage of HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who 
has favoured this Congress with his patronage. I took the liberty of sending Prince 
Philip a telegram, which reads as follows: 
“THE NINTH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF PHOTOGRAMMETRY 
COMPRISING REPRESENTATIVES OF FIFTY-SIX COUNTRIES NOW GATH 
ERED IN LONDON AND HOLDING THEIR INAUGURAL SESSION IN THE 
SENATE HOUSE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON SEND GREETINGS 
AND GOOD WISHES TO THEIR DISTINGUISHED PATRON AND THEIR 
GRATEFUL THANKS FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT THEY DERIVE FROM 
HIS INTEREST AND PATRONAGE.” 
I have this morning received the reply: 
“TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE NINTH INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF