CHEMICAL RESEARCH.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 25, 31 January 1928, Page 10

CHEMICAL RESEARCH.

IMPORTANCE TO DOMINION.

SWITZERLAND'S EXAMPLE.

ECONOMIC POSSIBILITIES.

Many people believed a chemist -was a 1 man who sold face creams, and it was ! rather extraordinary that the New Zca- • land legislation prescribed that a man I could not call himself a chemist unless lie was registered as a pharmacist. '• Chemical knowledge should be dissemi- ! nated through the whole communitv.' but in a healthy way and not by cram-! ming. These remarks were made by Profes- j jsor T. H. Easterfield, who presided at | | a dinner at the annual conference held ' | in Wellington of the New Zealand] ! section of the Institute of Chemistry i jof Great Britain and Ireland. | Professor Easterfield stressed the im-i j port a nee of fostering chemistry and said [there Mas a tendency before the war to ■ i sneer at it. Undoubtedly that tendency (had been shown in Great Britain. Now; | the attitude was different. The chemist! should be well educated all round, and; jthe more all-round his education the | more likely w-as he to impress upon the : ! public the importance of chemistrv to [the community. He referred to' the I great work the Swiss people had done I in chemistry, and said that in proportion to total population Switzerland had a larger number of highly-skilled chemists than any other country in the world. That was remarkable considering that she was suet a small country. No other country was producing ' so much or doing so much hi the science ot chemistry. "I want New Zealand,' said Professor Easterfield, '"to be as much to the fore as Switzerland, and ,1 would like to see every chemist make i 5 mark in the communitv as a man .who really does things." < Professor Easterfield spoke of the I great possibilities of the application of ichemical research to flax production and i remarked that the ZSew Zealander did !not seem to realise what there was in it. H scientific investigation had been given to flax in the past as it should have been otfr exports would now be at least ten times as great as thev were. In Lancashire there were attempting to make a material resembling wool from New Zealand flax, and he would like to think that that advance wa= the result oi experiments conducted bv New Zealanders. That was onlv one subject in which chemical research was capable of producing great value. Much had already been done and wa= still being done for the advancement ~ of primary production, and he expressed | the hope that Mr. B. C. Aston", experb jinents m overcoming bush sickness 'would produce good results.