UNIVERSITIES’ PART

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 264, 4 August 1936, Page 9

UNIVERSITIES’ PART

Solving Economic and Social Problems GREAT BRITAIN’S EXAMPLE “If Australia and New Zealand wish to solve their acute economic and social problems and promote efficiency in their industries they must believe in universities and provide adequately for their maintenance and development,” said Professor D. B. Copland. Professor of Commerce and Dean _ of the Faculty of Commerce at the University of Melbourne, who arrived at Wellington yesterday in the Maunganui on his way to attend the tercentenary celebrations of Harvard University in America. “One evidence of Great Britain’s strength during the depression is to be found in the fact that the expenditure on universities was nearly £900,000 a year greater in 1935 than in 192 p,” said Professor Copland. “I have been very interested in university finance in recent months, because I have been acting for the vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne during his absence, and I have carried on discussions with the Government of Victoria for the purpose of securing increased funds for the university. “From 1929 to 1935 the universities of Great Britain spent £5,000.000 on buildings. They received £5,250,000 in benefactions, about half of which was used for buildings. The staffs of the universities were increased 13 per cent., and the average salary is highei to-day than in 1929, despite the fall it prices. They spend nearly £1,500,001 a year to assist poor students to obtain a university education.” There was a Universities Grants Commission in Great Britain which surveyed every five years the condition of the universities and reported to tlie Treasury. Its most recent survey was made early this year, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that the total Government grants to the universities would be increased by from £1,830,000 to £2,100,000 a year. In addition, the universities would receive £150,000 which they voluntarily surrendered early in the financial crisis.

That was a most striking contrast to tlie experience of Australia and New Zealand, where Government grants had been cut down, building programmes suspended, assistance to students reduced, and severe economies exercised in staff, maintenance, and apparatus. “We are recovering in Australia from this ‘depression attitude’ toward universities, and I hope you in New Zealand are experiencing a similar reversion of feeling,” said Professor Copland. “It is obvious that Great Britain places great faith in her universities, and is unwilling, in spite of her financial difficulties, to retard their development.”

Professor Copland will represent the University of Melbourne at the Harvard celebrations, which are to be held in September, and he has also been asked to represent the University of Tasmania and the University of New Zealand. Before the celebrations, a todays conference is to be held, to which have been invited a number of representatives of each field of learning Among those who will attend are Professor Einstein, Professor Eddington and Professor Denis Robertson, of Cambridge University, and Professor Wesley Mitchell, of Columbia University. New York.

Professor Copland is to read a paper on “The State ond the Entrepreneur," and after the celebrations he will deliver a course of six lectures at the Lowell Institute, Boston, which is really part of Harvard University. He will fhen pay a quick visit to England, and will return in December.