“Future Peasants Of Pacific”

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30543, 11 September 1964, Page 2

“Future Peasants Of Pacific”

(“The Press” Special Service] WELLINGTON, September 10. If New Zealand ignores science, she could become the twenty-first century peasant of the Pacific, Mr I. L. Baumgart told members of the Wellington Business and Professional Women’s Club this week.

The senior principal scientific officer, head office, D.5.1.R., he was speaking on the role of Government and industry in connexion with the human adaptation to the scientific world. “Before long, New Zealand will be supplying the food and labour for the more enlightened nations who have progressed so far ahead of us,” he said. “If, on the other hand, we want to perpetuate or improve our standard of living in relation to other countries of the world, we must be prepared to keep abreast of progress by doing our share of research and development.” Mr Baumgart said: “If we want to become the food store of the Pacific, which is generally the role in which we are considered to be most effective, then we must have experts to share in and profit by work done by scientists of other nations. Our national thinking must include a willingness to keep up to our competitors in this race, and even outstrip them.

Caught Up “It is hard for a country of this size, isolated from the rest of the world, to appreciate developments elsewhere,” he said. “The Asiatic countries have caught up with the British Commonwealth with scientific know-how. Their future lies in science. Unless we pursue our scientific effort more vigorously they will lead and dominate us. “We are too used to the superiority of the white man. In the past, that simply meant that the white races gained an insight into science and technology several hundred years before the other races. Our main endeavour should be to lead and not lag in these activities.” Illustrating his point, he said that New Zealand had a haphazard approach to producing products. In America, science has bred beef cattle to produce the type of steak that is wanted by the American market. Reverse Role “This is the sort of thinking our competitors are doing,” he said. “Our traditionally rather haphazard approach of producing products that, the farmer likes rather than seeking to produce exactly what the market wants is now dated. ' “We in New Zealand would not like to receive manufactured goods from Malaysia and thereby reverse the white man’s role by becoming a peasant country,” he said. “I feel sure we would prefer to redouble our efforts and improve the means to develop our own country to meet the challenge of our survival in the future.”