Marine Department’s Report

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24980, 14 September 1946, Page 6

Marine Department’s Report

The report of the Marine Department for the year ended Mareh 31 has a good deal to say about the Dominion’s war-time shipbuilding, about New Zealand ships lost by enemy action, about the recovery of gold from the Niagara, about lighthouses in the war. AH of if is said at excessive length; and some of it (the 1200-word account, for instance, of the Niagara’s gold) is said at grossly excessive length—if, indeed, any of it had to be said four years after the “full” story, as the department notes, had been published “ in the papers throughout “ New Zealand and, in fact, through- “ out the world ”. The war histories offer • much more appropriate place. The pity of it is that, in looking forward, the department has far too little to say. The section given to post-war activities offers an assurance that progress in navigational aids, notably in radar, is being watched and applied. The replacement of obsolete fisheries patrol vessels and the participation of the Royal New Zealand Navy in fisheries patrol—a development into line with practice oversea—are to be welcomed. A reorganisation of fisheries research, too, is forecast in a reference to the fitting out of the Rsatere; but, regrettably, nothing clearly indicates how this important branch of scientific investigation is to be organised and developed. Fisheries research in New Zealand has had less attention and less direction- than any other research into the vital industries, and it is questionable whether it is adequately served it it is to be confined within a department so heavily committed in the field of administra-

tion. Moreover, theugh a paragraph recognises the principle of co-oriU-I nation in biological research, it is a paragraph dealing only with the fresh-water fisheries research section, which is ta work in conjunction with other interested bodies and in particular with the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, It is doubtful whether marine biological research ean function pro. periy in this country except on as broad a basis. A marine biologist’s, work is Inevitably hindered if he has no source of consultation and reference other than • departmental hCad. In this >S in ether aspects of biological research, the need is more and more evident for a national wild life council, a bureau of biological survey, or a suitable extension of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. Again, the department would usefully have said more about the new system of licensing control over the commercial fisheries. The evidence which shaped that policy could have been reviewed with advantage.