THE NEW SOCIETY

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 34, 3 November 1934, Page 4

THE NEW SOCIETY

Engineers and Changing Order ADDRESS BY PROFESSOR I \n appeal to civil engineers that thej I take their full part in the evolution of | the social structure iu the course of their work as planners and designers was made by Professor J. Shelley, Professor of Education at Canterbury College, iu au address last night to the Wellington district branch of the New Zealand Society of Civil Engineers. The chairman, Mr. J. G. Lancaster, presided over a large attendance, Professor Shelley, whose subject was "Man in the Machine Age,” outlined the effect of the machine era since the dawn of history upon the development of the home, and from the home, the community. He showed that the birth of the industrial era iu the middle of the 19th century had profoundly influenced the old society revolving round agriculture by the disintegration of family life and the grouping of tlie workers round the factory. The effect of the machine age upon marriage and the revolution in social life consequent upon the advance of industry was also touched upon by the speaker. The whole trend of the new society had been Immeasurably affected by engineers through the opening up of communications. The ' engineer, by the nature of ills work, was an enormous factor in social change. It. was urgent that he should calculate the outcome of what he planned to do. Au engineer’s outlook should be directed to the right ordering of an everchanging society. He should have in mind the continual growth of human development. He therefore should not plan for the moment nor for 50 years hence, but for changes going on progressively both now and for tlie future. Dominion Not Too Remote. The speaker ridiculed statements by Cabinet Ministers who in recent weeks had said in relation to this ami that, “New Zealand is too remote.. ..” Engineers had shown that no part of the world to-day was too remote from any other part. When New Zealand could comiminicate with the other side of the world electrically, or when the human body could be transported over half the earth in three days, remoteness disappeared altogether.What the Dominion needed was a “Minister of Remoteness.” or, better still, a "Minister of Communications.” His sole business would be to see thy t New Zealand was not left out of the world. At present every State department worked within its own narrow sphere, and of course thought the rest of the world was too remote, even if it meant the backbloeks of their own country. “When a statement is made in Parliament that New Zealand is too remote,” salil Professor Shelley, “the Minister of Communications should take such a remark as an insult to this country.” The proposed Minister of Communications, continued the professor, would serve his country well if he was given half a million pounds for the express purpose of sending abroad responsible State officers and others in high positions who had no knowledge of what the rest of the world was like. They simply werC without first-hand information of problems which bore upon tlie country they administered. “One eannot get rich experience by meeting half a. dozen people,” said Professor Shelley. “To understand the mind of the rest of the world it is important that made with that other mind about which we in this country know so very little. We in New Zealand are pot-bound—there is no doubt of it,” he added. At the conclusion of his remarks Professor .Shelley answered a number of questions. He emphasised that he had not meant to convey that engineer? were the “villain of the piece” in bringing about the less desirable attributes of modern society. What he woul 1 stress, however, was their power for good or ill in what they could accomplish by the application of their highly specialised abilities in the- creation of the machine and their influence upon the communication of man with man.