SOCIAL REFORMS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 30, 5 February 1937, Page 9

SOCIAL REFORMS.

MINISTER'S PROPOSAL

BUREAU TO STUDY, PROBLEMS

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

HOKITIKA, thia day.

An indication that he contemplated establishing a bureau of social science to assist the Government in its social reforms was given by the Minister in charge of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, the Hon. D. G. Sullivan.

"An officer of experience of this kind of work has for some time past been engaged in making a survey of fields with the object of submitting to me a report on activities now being carried out and by whom they are being carried out," said Mr. Sullivan. "I am proposing to set up a bureau of social science, whose duties it will be to co-ordinate the varied activities, eliminate duplication and overlapping, and direct a# far as practicable the work of investigating bodies.

"It is my desire to approach the problem from the standpoint of the individual and to do so it will be necessary to co-ordinate research work in many fields. We must pay attention to those influences that will ensure that our industries are conducted upon scientific lines, so tha£ injurious effects upon men and women who are forced by economic circumstances to follow laborious and monotonous occupations are eliminated as far as is humanly possible. "The bureau, of course, will have no executive authority, but its activity will not be restricted on that account. It will collect its data from all fields and prepare authoritative reports for the Government. It will form a valuable adjunct to the new Bureau of Industry and will work in close collaboration with the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and the Department of Health. I think that the idea will meet with the approval of the Government, and from inquiries I have made I have every reason to hope that it will be readily accepted by the units now engaged in these at present unrelated activities."