GIFT TO UNIVERSITY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 10, 12 January 1940, Page 6

GIFT TO UNIVERSITY.

Large gift* to the University are rare in New Zealand, and for that reason alone the offer of Mi'. H. Yalder, of Hamilton, to establish a fIVA years' fellowship, at a cost of £7500, would be notable. Even more interesting is the object for which the money is to be given. "What we have learnt concerning the proper impact of science upon society in the past century," wrote Sir Josiah Stamp recently) "is trilling compared with what we have yet to discover and apply. We have spent much and long upon the science of matter, and the greater our success the greater must be our failure unless we turn alßo at long last to an equal advance in the science of man." These views, though expressed with the United Kingdom in mind, are an excellent summing up of the' motives which have led Mr. Valder to make his magnificent gift to the University of New Zealand. The fellowship will be devoted to research into social relations in industry. Provided the "right man" can be found for the work, this research may be valuable and fruitful. New Zealand was one of the first countries to attempt to adjust industrial relationships by legislation. The attempt has been pursued for a generation and if legislation could secure the end desired we should have attained it. Now there is a prospect of making a new approach to the problem in a spirit of scientific impartiality. Tt, would be wrong to expect any quick or certain "results," but it is in the willingness of Mr. Valder to devote a substantial sum to a research of the kind not obviously or immediately "useful" that, there can be seen the true quality of his gift. It is a fine, exemplary gesture for New Zealand's Centenary year-