DOMINION’S NATIONAL RESOURCES

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 127, 24 February 1944, Page 4

DOMINION’S NATIONAL RESOURCES

Complete Appraisal Urged ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY ‘‘We need now a complete and thoroughgoing overhaul and appraisal of our national resources —soil and climate, plant and animal life, mines and minerals. power and, above all,, our resources of human population,” said Dr. G. Jobberns, D.Sc., professor of geography, Canterbury University College, in an address at the inaugural meeting last night of the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Geographical Society. Professor C. A. Cotton, Victoria University College, introduced the speaker, and Mr. W. B. Harris presided. . “All sorts of private individuals and State institutions are working in many fields of inquiry as part of their ordinary routine work,” added Dr. Jobberns. ‘Hie trouble is that, through extensive, the knowledge wc have is not co-ordinated. Government departments such as Soil Survey, Scientific and Industrial Research, Agriculture, Lands, State Advances, Industries and Commerce, Public Works, have collectively an immense amount of factual material. The land area is being systematically mapped. But the whole sum of knowledge wants coordinating and sifting to give us a complete picture of the economic geography of the country—an orderly, systematic and thorough survey of our resources. Then only will we be in a position to think intelligently of the problems of planning for the future, of rehabilitation and of rebuilding our overseas trade relations with the rest of the world. / In short, we want what the survey of German resources gave to Germany before the war, but we want it for a nobler purpose. We want it to plan for the better ordering of our national economic and social life.”

“I cannot imagine any Governmen undertaking such a survey. It is n> task for any one man or group trained in any one field. It is a task for which all the best brains of our country should be pooled. It is a task for a Stateappointed commission over and above aii existing Government departments. , Pe, haps your geographical society can do something to awaken public opinion to the need for this national project on eco nomic geography. I leave this with you as something to press for, but perhaps I ought really to be urging this great, national need in another place in this city this evening. Transformation of New Zealand.

“Knowledge of our own immediate living space, land area or habitat is not enough. We must understand the piac u and function of our country in the world as a whole,” said Dr. Jobberns. “It pleases me very much to see our seconu ary schools moving in the direction of attempting to give our young people some understandinf of the society in which they will have to live. It seems to be the deliberate intention of the educational authorities to give teachers a maxi mum of freedom in their methods of attacking this important (ask. The understanding of any social structure or orde.' will come/mly out of understanding of the fundamental geography and social history. “Geographically, New Zealand is a country of unique interest. An original flora, scarcely altered by the Maori, ha* been almost stripped away. A new flora. European for the most part, has taken its place. A completely new fauna ic the main basis of our economy. The story of the transformation of the New Zealand countryside is something that our young people should have for Lie fuller understanding and appreciation o, their heritage—an interpretation of the development of the New Zealand land scape. The war has done .one excellent service for geography in New Zealand A project for the topographic mapping of the country is well under way, and some excellent mile-to-the-inch sheet* have been produced.” Dr. Jobberns said what was waiter Iwas a regional descriptive interpretation of New Zealand as an area, and he advo cated the publication of a good New Zealand geographic magazine.