OUR DEBT TO SCIENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 30, 4 August 1926, Page 9

OUR DEBT TO SCIENCE

WHAT RESEARCH IS DOHfG

SURVEY BY PRINCE OF WAUSS

M)DKESS TO BBEPISH 'ASSOGIsk-

TION.

(•United Pros* Association.—Copyright..) (Australian-New Zealand Cable Assn.) LONDON, 3rd August.

The Prince of Wales delivered the presidential address at the meeting at Oxford. of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. After an apology for addressing such, an audience of experts, the Prince said that ho proposed to recall the praotical applications of science which he had seen in peace and war, and during his world and other tours, and particularly « the aid the State was rendering scientific research. The present debt of society to science, the Prince said, could be estimated by the fact that two million workers in Britain to-day were living on the brains of Faraday, in consequence of Faraday's discovery of benzine, which was the basis of the dyeing industry, and his discovery of the laws of electrolysis. FIELD OF AGRICULTURE. The establishment of the Development Commission in 1908 had greatly strengthened the interaction between science and the Stats. The Rothamsted station had now been, expanded to coyer the whole field of nutrition and disease in plants. The institutes dealing with aspects of agriculture were not only training our owe farmers, but forming a training ground for the agricultural experts required in the Dominions, India, and the colonies, which no longer had to look abroad for experts. At the plant-breeding institute at Cambridge Professor Sir Bowland Biffen had provided two new wheats, of which the extra yield alone had already repaid the whole expenditure upon agricultural research. Since then the institute had established investigations into potato disease and fruit-tree pests. In connection with milk also there had been a most valuable reform. The rationing of cows alone had increased the yield of each cow from 100 to 200 gallons a year. The co-ordination of medical research had been of the greatest use. The Prince instanced Canada's gift of insulin to humanity, and the discovery of vitamins. THE STATE AND SCIENCE. wThe committee of the Privy Council for scientific industrial research now consists of eleven boards, to which thirty-six committees are affiliated," His Royal Highness proceeded. "There are also twenty industrial research associations under the supervision of an advisory council. The Food Investigation Board directs other committees concerning the preservation of meat, fruit,-and vegetables, while the National Physics Laboratory, along with tho low temperature research station at Cambridge, is considering re-, frigeration problems on Australian ships. The new attitude of the State towards science is bearing fine fruit in tho Dominions. Nothing but good can come from contact between the overseas workers and the British workers. The association geeks to develop this. Not the least desirable feature of the present meeting at Oxford is the large number of distinguished guests attracted from overseas, to whom I extend a most cordial welcome."