COMMONWEALTH DEVELOPMENT

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27307, 25 March 1954, Page 13

COMMONWEALTH DEVELOPMENT

USE OF INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES

PROGRESS COMPARED BY DR. G. A. CURRIE

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, March 23. Canada and Australia were likely to be in the forefront of the atomic age, said the Vice-Chancellor of the University of New Zealand (Dr. G. A. Currie) to a Rotary conference at Wellington tonight. Canada was possibly the nation that was making the most rapid industrial progress today, he said. She had enormous power potentialities from water, oil, and uranium, and possessing as she did a progressive people of two races she was forging ahead “at a speed which makes us gasp.” Australia, with her rapid growth in population through immigration and through the discovery of oil and uranium, was moving fast. Her scientists, equal to any in the world, were assisting her to develop this industrial potential.

“We ourselves have no mean achievement to our credit, since our farmers are probably capable of the highest production a person from grassland of any people in the world,” added Dr. Currie. New Zealand had been unselfish and helpful in her treatment of the Old Country during her war-time and postwar difficulties. Even if people did sometimes call New Zealanders a somewhat smug people and refer to the country as the “dull paradise in the Pacific,” he had heard the Dominion referred to as the “darling of the nations.” She seemed to have few enemies. Brifißin herself had made an industrial recovery that was exceeded only by that of Western Germany. Her scientists and industrialists had produced goods to such an extent that her pre-war prosperity had almost been recovered. ‘‘But we must never forget that in this prosperity the most generous nation in the world—the United States —has been very active,” said Dr. Currie. He added that Britain in her treatment of her colonial responsibilities had probably shown more than any other colonial Power a wise and understanding outlook towards the peoples entrusted to her care, regarding them as worthy of bein* treated as human beings and not only as potential producers of wealth “The fact that we still hold the friendship of India when she has grown from the fold, that Pakistan remains a Dominion, and that Ceylon remains friendly demonstrates Britain’s capacity for human statesmanship,” said Dr. Currie.