Thousands Arriving For Congress

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31584, 23 January 1968, Page 12

Thousands Arriving For Congress

Enrolments for the fortieth congress of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the advancement of Science will begin at the University of Canterbury at Ham this morning.

The main influx of more than 2000 delegates is expected today and tomorrow, but already 200 have arrived from Australia and elsewhere and are touring the South Island, while 100 more are touring the North Island. Mr E. L. Freedman, the executive secretary of the association, will arrive from Sydney today, and the president, Sir John Crawford, Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University, is expected tomorrow morning. A noted economist, Sir John Crawford has chosen “The Malthusian Spectre in India” as the subject for his presidential address at the opening ceremony in the Civic Theatre tomorrow evening. The congress will be opened by the Governor-Gen-eral (Sir Arthur Porritt). So far 2300 delegates have registered for the congress, but the organisers expect the number to rise to 2500. The delegates will hear 900 papers in the course of a week, divided among 16 scientific sections. Each paper will be read, and at any one time during the congress between 30 and 36 lectures will be given simultaneously. The organisers have prepared complete sets of abstracts of the scientific papers, summarising the addresses in about 150 words. For the first time, congress enrolments have been processed by a computer, recording on punched cards the names of delegates, alloting their accommodation, noting their excursions and sending receipts. Already 1400 beds have been reserved for the delegates in Christchurch, and the organisers are now placing the surplus in motels and billets. Among the speakers at the conference will be some of the leading scientists in Australia, New Zealand, Britain and the United States. One of them, Professor E. W. Titterton, a nuclear physicist from the Australian National University, is now in Wellington discussing defence matters with the Government.

Professor Nicols Vorys, from Ohio State University, is a world leader in birthcontrol studies. His public address during the congress will be on the subject of hormonal control of conception. A world figure in geology, Professor F. W. Shotton, of Birmingham University, will attend the congress as a University Grants Committee prestige fellow under the Commonwealth scheme. He will stay for a month lecturing at New Zealand universities. His public address to the congress will be entitled, “What Was the Ice Age.” The president of the history section will be Professor J. D. Legge, head of the history department at Monash University, Melbourne. He will talk about the teaching of Asian studies. Professor C. H. Munro, of the University of New South Wales, will have a special message for New Zealand in his engineering paper about water resources. He plans to discuss his belief that few in Australia or New Zealand are seriously looking at the development of water resources. Computerised factory-type farming will be discussed by Dr F. H. Morley of the Division of Plant Industry at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Organisation’s laboratory in Canberra. Dr. Morley is president of the agriculture, forestry and horticulture section of the congress.