The Press SATURDAY, AUGUST 22, 1959. Industrial Research

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28980, 22 August 1959, Page 12

The Press SATURDAY, AUGUST 22, 1959. Industrial Research

Recent achievements of the Australian Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in wool technology lend emphasis to the plea for New Zealand's adoption of the same system made by Dr. W. M. Hamilton, Secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. What is really more important, however, is the inefficiency of the present New Zealand system. We spread our limited resources too thinly among several departments; and we try to organise and grade our scientific workers largely as civil servants. The results we obtain probably more than justify the amount we do spend as a nation on research; but we could almost certainly get better results from less expenditure if we ended departmental empirebuilding and concentrated our efforts. And a relatively small additional expenditure would bring us disproportionately handsome economic returns. In Australia, where there is a long tradition of freedom from departmental rules and of close collaboration with industry, the organisation has clearly demonstrated its value. It should be possible to put Dr. Hamilton’s proposal into effect very easily. All that is needed is to give our present Council of Scientific and Indus-

trial Research its own budget (to begin with, roughly the amount that is now dispersed among several Government departments) and let it organise i scientific work to the best advantage. It would engage its : workers on the best possible terms, because the more economic its operations the more it could undertake. Dr. Hamilton spoke particularly of agricultural research, since this is the field where duplication is greatest in New Zealand. However, the other research activities of his department and others could fit quite well into the scheme, as they do in Australia. The success of the Australian organisation in co-operating with other interests is shown in its recovery of 12J per cent, of its expenditure from them It also maintains close links with the universities and other establishments that concentrate on basic pure research.

Politics in New Zealand for the last 25 years have become so much entangled with economics that much-needed reforms have been overlooked. If a truce could be called to wrangling over wages, taxes> and benefits, and attention directed to improving our productivity everyone would be better off. A Government wishing to make a start in this direction could hardly do better than take the advice of Dr. Hamilton.