WORK.AND IDLENESS

SCIENCE MAKES BOTH

IS STILL KEY TO PROGRESS

Thiee thousand million pounds was added to the world's wealth by the inventions of Thomas A. Edison. That estimate was used by Sir James Jeans, in his presidential address to 3000 mcmbeis of the British Association, states the London "Daily Express." He gave an impassioned denial to the chargo that science does more harm than good. Although some new inventions had thrown people out of work, he said, sci-> entific discoveries had provided work for..< millions

"Theie are many who attribute most oi our present national woes—including unemployment in industry and the danger of war—to the recent rapid advance in scientific knowledge," Sir James went' on.

"It is obvious that the country which called a halt to scientific progress would soon fall behind in every other respect as well.

"Those who sigh for an Arcadia In I which all the machinery would be swapped and all invention proclaimed a cume, as it was in Erewhon, forget that the Erewhonutns had neither to compete with highly organised scientific competitors for the trade of the world, nor to protect themselves against possible bomb-dropping, blockade, or invasion. ' "Scientific research has two products of industrial importance—the laboursaving inventions which displace labour and the more fundamental discoveries which may ultimately lead to new trades, and new popular demands providing employment for vast armiet of labour. "Our great need at the moment i» tor industry-making discoveries. The investigator in pure science does not know whether his researches will result in a mere labour-saving device or a new industry. He only knows that if # all seionce were throttled down neither would result. "The community would become crystallised in its present state, with nothing to do but watch its population incieasc, and shiver as it waited for the famine, pestilence, or war, which must inevitably come, to restore the balance between food and mouths, land and population.'' .