Loss Of Best Scientists Feared By D.S.I.R. Divisional Director

Press, Volume C, Issue 29436, 11 February 1961, Page 11

Loss Of Best Scientists Feared By D.S.I.R. Divisional Director

New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, Feb. 10. Tf better salaries and facilities, together with a more flexible system of financial control. could not be obtained. New Zealand faced the certain loss over the next three years of its best scientific brains, said the Director of the Fruit Research Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (Mr J D Atkinson) in a letter read to Auckland Federated Farmers today. The letter, addressed to and read by the president (Mr A. E Hughes) cited, "an inflexible annual budget and a set of rules intended for a purely c'erical service” as among the reasons for “the serious crisis affecting research officers in the D.S.I-R and the Department of Agriculture.” ■•This country has been providing Australia and the United Kingdom with a steady flow of trained men for many years, and getting few in return.” Mr Atkinson said "Since 1960. when the new Public Service scales were announced, losses from New Zealand Government departments have threatened to become a flood " The main reasons, ne said, were that Public Service salaries for scientific staff were a long way below world

rates, and facilities and scope of scientific research were inadequate because of the small amount of money available. Many New Zealand scientists were known personally to scientific administrators abroad, said Mr Atkinson, and they could not resist indefinitely* “the temptations of a 50 to 100 per cent, increase in salary better facilities, more colleagues working within their own field, and the chance to concentrate on a particular line rather than attempting three or four jobs simultaneously here. The letter continued: “Once we lose these key men our research units will become hollow shells, lacking the ideas and drive necessary to solve New Zealand’s problems. Some research divisions have almost reached this position already, and in others the collapse is starting. Under present conditions there is no possible chance of replacing experienced men w’ho resign, and no hope of recruiting first-class new graduates.” Mr Atkinson said the only chance of effecting any drastic change necessary to save the research divisions was to set up a committee of inquiry comprising three outstanding men from overseas who could produce a set of recommendations in three months—recom-

mendations “which would cut through all the red tape.” The federation unanimously adopted a remit supporting the establishment of such a committee, with the qualification that “the order of reference be sufficiently wide to cover economic and other matters.” Accompanying Mr Atkinson’s letter was a list of examples of the loss to agricultural research by lack of staff. These included:— Pasture viruses: No-one is studying these at present (and there is no-one in sight to contine the work) because of the removal for personal financial reasons of the only scientist in the country trained to tackle it. Aphids on rape, turnips, and swedes: There are no trained entomologists on this cropworrying research. Control of Northland pasture insects. Control of insects by viruses. Menstodes (group of small worms which either live in soil or invade plant roots, causing serious crop losses): One man has been appointed to the Entomology Division and is being trained overseas —“but (said Mr Atkinson) one man cannot hope to cover this huge field adequately, and no money is available for a second.”