SCIENCE CONGRESS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 112, 5 February 1919, Page 5

SCIENCE CONGRESS

OPENING SPEECHES IN CHRISTCHURCH

NEED fOR FINANCIAL

SUPPORT

By lolegraph-Presa Association,

Christchurch, February 4. The Science Congress was formally opened this evening, His Excellency the Governor-General, in hie address, referred to the importance of the oil industry. At one period of the war, he said, we were very much stuck up owing to our main oil supplies cominjr from Rumania, round the Caspian Sea, and the turbulent country of Mexico. If the British Government could find some means of securing supplies from, other than these three places he felt su're it would be of immense value to the Empire at large. The Hon. G. W. Russell, in his addreiss, asked for the co-ordination of public and private scientific knowledge. During the last few years a little, a very little," had been accomplished in this direction. Instead of science being a side-flhow it must be made one of tho main objects and purposes of national life- and organisation. What was required i was the creation of' a scientific atmosphere throughout the Dominion.. It must begin in the primary schools. Science should permeate our whole education system, and the. State must be prepared to foot the bill. He therefore urged the Science Congress to press upon the Government, and upon each and every succeeding- Government, that without Governmental expenditure science 'could not grow and expand, and that if the Dominion was to develop by means of science adequate funds must be pro■vided for research, for the training of teachers and professors, and for the equipment of laboratories and staffs. The President's , Addross. , ', Dr. L. Cockayno delivered his presidential address, in which he dealt exhaustivoly with the history of the New Zealand Institute. The total number of papers which appeared in the fifty volumes of the transactions ,of the institute was 8846, or abont seventy contributions ■ each year, deferring to the finances of the institute lie 6aid that there were barely funds to publish the transactions alone. Happily, more than a gleahi of hope had appeared. Mr. Russell was not unmindful of- the call of science. . Full' well he knew its , value to the ; nation. Already he had greatly assisted the institute by special grants for economic science, and now he had promised to do hie utmost to place -the institute upon- a firm financial footing. Tlnis.it seemed not unlikely that this congress had begun a,- , new era of usefulness for the institute. The Board of-Governors hoped that wouldi be soon. The offer .to hand over the institute's library to the Government as the. nucleus of a real scientific library, to be housed property, would be accepted and acted upon." The maintenance of \ properly equijg)ed library was quite beyond the means of the institute. "The attitude of the institute and of the Dominion," eaid Dr. Cockayne, in conclusion, "should be to work not'for the present alone, but for posterity, for the future indeed must this New Zealand of ours, our beloved country, shine if she is to become truly great,".