TRIPLE ALLIANCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 110, 5 November 1937, Page 10

TRIPLE ALLIANCE

SCIENCE, CAPITAL, LABOUR

"While many of us are prepared to concede that grave industrial unrest has often followed as the result of scientific discoveries, the difficulty has arisen not from the incapacity of the scientist to do his share, but rather from the inability of man to understand I man," remarked Professor H. G. Den-j ham during the course of the Cawthronj Lecture which he gave in Nelson on Wednesday night. "Modern developments have lea to the turning loose of unlimited resources without regard to their social implications. A hundred years ago the power looms of England destroyed the cotton, weaving industry, and during the early years of that impact, misery strods over the countryside of England, and these resulted an accumulation of wealth in the hands of the nouveaux riches who used their, capital to exploit] their gains over the entire world. That] kind of thing has happened over and over again in the past, and we have called it progress because in the long run the common man shared in the distribution in the way of reduced working hours and an improved scale of living. ' But what happened to the common man in the short run was all too frequently nobody's concern—laissez faire at its worst. All too + often we have overlooked the fact that creative science, capital, and skilled labour form three legs of the .tripod upon which modern industrial development rests. There can be no real stability, no real progress, unless each bears its share of the structure erected at their common desire. Without.this triple appliance based on the mutual interest and the loyal co-operation of the investigator, the alert manufacturer, and the willing artisan, no scientific discovery will make a real and lastm? contribution to the well-being the world at large, nor.can the peopllong remain in that happy contented frame of mind that speaks of real Plenty and of the realisation of sound ideals Invention and discovery have unquestionably contributed their quota towards an increased production both of goods and of services, andhave done much to free nwnk.nd. from hi^ ace-long slavery to the earth. If we hive made it possible to grow more food with less land and labour millkms will have more leisure for other things Kwe have found ways of prXing clothing in richer abundance has not this meant additional comfort to mankind? The high per capita production of goods which the scientist and the engineer have made Sle has .meant more goods, more leisure than ever before.