SCIENTIFIC LEADERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 207, 1 September 1932, Page 14

SCIENTIFIC LEADERS.

I CONGRESS IN SYDNEY. SIR H. MURRAY'S ADDRESS ON PAPUA. "MAKING THE BROWN MAN BETTER." (From Our Own Correspondent.) I SYDNEY, August 26. During the week the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science has been holding its twenty-first biennial session at the University, ami this has naturally attracted a great deal of public interest. Over a thousand scientists, men and women, representing almost every conceivable phase and grade oi academic study and technical research, have been reading papers and discussing questions arising out of them hour after hour and day after day. It is quite impossible to give any adequate idea ol the scope and character of these 00C or 700 contributions to the knowledge of mankind. The nature of aridity, bad teeth, the determination of tar acids town planning, export prices and internal price levels, milks of magnesia B swimming baths, blowflies, Bolshevism H the growth of bureaucracy, the incom{J patibiliiiea of sodium barbitone anc Eg sodium phenobarbitone, the discovery oi B the Clarence River, leprosy, New States ■ —these are a few of the titles, gathered Hj at random from an enormous lost, anc H they must serve to produce a faint imB pression of the heterogeneous and com H prehensive character of "the feast oi H reason and the flow of soul" that those R who have participated in the congress Kj have enjoyed during the past few days P It is almost equally impossible to saj H anything particularly instructive aboir If the leading members of the congress m for every branch of science and litera H ture and intellectual research is 1 represented ■sented there. ■ Two of the most con K spieuous figures are Sir Hubert Murray E tlie incoming president, who, as Lieut. K Governor of Papua for 24 years, is om tK of our greatest authorities on the treat be ment of primitive races; and Sir Doug H las Mawson, who made fame for himsel: B long since in Antarctica. But I maj K be permitted to draw special attentior E to a few scientists who are well knowr K in New Zealand—Dr. Gilruth, now preei K dent of the Australian Veterinary Asso Bj ciation; Dr. Tillyard, once of the Cawth Sj ron Institute, and now one of the leadK? ing Federal' entomologists at Canberra; g» and Dr. P. Marshall, consulting geologist & to the New Zealand Public Works Doff partment. These gentlemen may all be Ej regarded as representing New Zealand m directly or indirectly, and certainly Dr H Marshall has missed no opportunity foi K putting in a word fo>- his own country, B Shortly after his arrival ho told an inK terviewer that there had probably not Kj been any serious earthquake in the Hi Hawke'e Bay district for 10,000 years p before this last catastrophe, and there g was no likelihood of any recurrence foi an indefinite future; and he described the story that the Arapuni dam is uny safe and a menace to the surrounding <| country as "pure fiction." ■j One of the most notable papers read ■ at the congress was Sir Hubert Murray's % contribution on "The Scientific Aspects K of the Pacification of Papua." This was * a sustained and carefully reasoned £. attack upon the old "unscientific' pf- methods of enslavement and slaughter b and it was a most enlightening and : inspiring effort. Sir Hubert's description of the natives bursting into tears when ordered to refrain from using theii weapons—"what is life to us," they sobbed, "let us be hanged, if .we may not throw spears at the police"—was pathetic amusing as well as instructive; and 'most impressive was his enunciation of the principle that has guided hie administration. "We are not," he said, for himself and his colleagues, "trying to make the brown man white, but we are trying to make him a better , brown man than he was before." Treatment of Natives. A further contribution to the studj of the primitive savage was made by Mr. F. L. Bell, who defended the Polynesians against the traditional charge of laziness, pointing out that the atmosphere of lethargy and apathy in whicli their lives are too often spent hae beer created by the action of the whites in "destroying and stamping put" the institutions and customs round which their national industry and social life were originally concentrated. It is a significant fact that, referring to the tiny island of Tikopia, where Professor Raymond Firth—once a student at Auckland University College—spent a patient year of investigation, one of the learned anthropologists present, while commending euch research; went so far as to say that "the greatest gift we could present to Tikopia would be to preserve its isolation from white men." Such views of the difficult problems involved in the contact of white civilisation with primitive eimplicity might well be taken to heart by those responsible for New Zealand's administration of Samoa. An interesting and important part of the work undertaken by the Congress this week concerns the Australian aborigines. This unfortunate race, 30 long maligned and misunderstood, is now at ,last coming to be appreciated at its true scientific and human value, and it found a courageous champion for its rights and claims in Miss Olive Pink, a teacher from Tasmania, who "rolled her swag and travelled alone from Port Augusta to Darwin" so as to get know?ledge of the natives and their customs and character at first hand. Her paper on "Central Australian Plants as Native Foods" was highly praised, but even more valuable was her criticism of the injustice and wrong to which mistaken public policy has eo frequently exposed these hapless people. Mention of Miss Pink reminds me that a considerable number of women came from Melbourne to represent the scientific progress of the southern capital, and a valuable paper on "The Gold Situation" Was contributed by Miss Beryl Rouch, a Melbourne graduate who is aesistant to Professor Shann in the economics section of the Bank of New South Wales. Miss Rouch's paper won high praise from the experts, though, as it predicted a probable decline in the world's gold production after 1033, it opened up rather depressing economic and financial prospects. The Economic Section. Mies Rouch's paper might well serve as an introduction to the work of the economics section, in which Professor D. B. Copland has played a conspicuous and able part. Hie advocacy of the stabilisation of sterling, and his masterly criticism of the Douglas credit system are deserving of careful attention. But the same praise is certainly not due to the contributions offered to the discussion of economic -problems by several physicists and mathematicians. These gentlemen appear to believe that

the economists are very inadequately equipped for their tmeiness, and that an acquaintance with one or two branches of applied science is what is really needed for the solution of the world's economic problems. Judging by the comments which they offered on the Ottawa Conference, their efforts are not likely to leave the world, in an economic sense, much better off than thev found it. The worst weakness of highly specialised scientific training eeeme to be that it induces its victims to regard themselves as competent to handle any other kind of work, scientific or otherwise, without any preliminary experience whatever.

Other notable papers were Dr. Cilento's discussion of the Northern Territory and ite , capacity for absorbing and employing a large white population, and Professor Alcock's analysis of the growth of bureaucracy in Australia.