ENGINEERS' STATUS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 180, 1 August 1932, Page 5

ENGINEERS' STATUS.

PLACE OF ADMINISTRATORS. TECHNICAL MEN NEEDED. WORK AND HUMAN AFFAIRS.

Problems that engineers had to face outside their technical work and matters having a bearing on the position and professional status of engineer? were dealt with by Mr. D. E. Parton in an address to the Canterbury College Engineering Society. Mr. G. McGregor presided over an attendance of about 25 members. Mr. Parton began by impressing on his listeners that if they wished to be successful engineers they must be prepared to think things out and get things done and have a definite aim throughout their career. In solving difficult problems they must not shirk, but rather benefit by the stimulating qualities of difficulties. "Comparatively speaking, the modern technical expert is a newcomer to officialdom," declared the speaker, "and has still to be assigned his proper place in administrative work, and at the same time to have the scope of his authority and the dignity of his position more definitely determined and extended. A grave suspicion exists that leading technical men are not given the same opportunities of occupying positions _of supreme influence under State or civil control as they are in commercial and industrial circles. The engineer is quite frequently relegated to a position in which the very purpose of hie qualifications and appointment is rendered extremely irksome and more or less ineffectual —a position, morover, in which the exercise of his legitimate activities is economically restricted. "The remedy for the present unsatisfactory state of affairs, as regards the position of the technical expert, is not far to seek. As matters stand_ to-day, many technical men have too little influence and authority, while others have too much influence and an excess _ of authority. The only way to obviate this ie by insisting on a thorough reorganisation of the whole system of control. An expert technical officer may obviously be an excellent clerical administrator, but a purely clerical officer can never be a technical expert. Under suitable reorganisation it would be possible to select the best qualified officers in any branch of a service to fill the most important administrative posts, irrespective of immediate status and other consideratione now purposely used as barriers." The engineering profession, he said, had passed through the preliminary stages of its growth and had reached a position where the engineer himself must jealously guard what had teen won. and at the eame time continue to think and act with a full consciousness of th=> important relation of his work to human affairs. It had also to be remembered that the constant change in viewpoints was peculiar to engineering work, ana as this wae brought about largely through developments in scientific knowledge, even the progress of civilisation seemed to depend upon it. Conditions today differed from those of a century ago in proportion to the scientific and engineering development of the intervening

period. A vote of thanks was moved by Professor J. E. L. Cull.