THE ROYAL SOCIETY

Evening Star, Issue 21639, 7 February 1934, Page 1

THE ROYAL SOCIETY

AHD THE NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE AH HONOURABLE RECORD On January 1, 1934, the New Zealand Institute died and the Royal Society of New Zealand was born. It was a case of “ the king is dead—long live the king,” for the same Act of Parliament dissolved the institute and created the Royal Society of New Zealand, by permission of His Majesty King George V. The institute was a body with a more or less localised field, but with a limitless horizon. When its embyro (the New Zealand Society, encouraged by Sir George Grey) came into being in 1851, the population of New Zealand was in the vicinity of 32,000, so from the population standpoint the field was very small indeed. But the natural material was boundless, and most of it was new. Equally boundless was the scope of a body which embraced building materials, statistical data, chemical analysis, education, history, ethnology, literature, music, as well as all Nature’s phenomena and the natural sciences that go with them. The spacious width of the work offering contrasted sharply—and does so still—with the narrow finance, a revenue depending mostly upon Parliament. The Government grant was £SOO in the year 1868, £I,OOO in 1920-1924, £1,500 in the years 1925-1930, £750 from 19311932, and is now back to £SOO, the figure at which it stood sixty-six years ago. Has the New Zealand Institute, now the Royal Society of New Zealand, performed up to the limits of its varying but always narrow finances? Consider botany in a new country. A botanical survey of even one district could be a very expensive undertaking. It would be far beyond the capacity of a body with such, a slended revenue to authorise such expenditure, even were such within the body's scope. But the existence of the New Zealand Institute, as the acceptor and publisher of scientific papers, inspired a whole band of unselfish and talented workers to give up their time and energy. The value of much of this unpaid labour cannot he assessed in money terms, but it is out of all proportion to what the New Zealand Institute has cost the public finances of New Zealand. In botany alone an immense amount of work in field, in laboratory, and at the writing desk has created a fund of knowledge that in itself would more than justify the New Zealand Institute even if other natural sciences had yielded nothing. FROM HOOKER TO COCKAYNE. Associated with the early life of the institute, as members or hotorar*’ members, were such men of’science as. Dr You Hoehstetter, Sir J. D. Hooker, Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley, Sir Walter Buffer, and W. Colenso, and a new era of botany began with Dr L. Cockayne, who has further. demonstrated the world interest of New Zealand’s unique vegetation. The first paper on hush sickness (sickness of cattle due to mineral deficiency in the pasture of certain districts in New Zealand) appeared in the ‘ Transactions of the New Zealand Institute ’ —and mineral deficiency ailments of stock have since been recognised in various localities all over the world, and have become a subject of prime economic importance. There is no important agricultural country that has not given thought to this subject, in the investigation of which and in the development of the food iron treatment, New Zealand was a pioneer. For the financial reasons already stated economic action was not within the competence of the .New Zealand Institute. The institute could accept and publish papers on bush sickness and deforestation; it was not the institute’s province to finance researches and remedial measures. This should he remembered when the question is asked: “ What has the institute done? ” The institute is not financed to be an undertaking of active research or of applied science, though it has on occasions aided such work. It is a know-ledge-recording, publishing, and administering body—publishing and administering within the limits of_ its means. Funds have not permitted it to be a teaching body except through the agency of the platform, publishing, and newspaper Press. Its meetings and transactions have given the Press material that has had wide publication. If the Transactions themselves are not available in' popular reading form, that is not the fault of a body whose publishing funds are so scanty. The Transactions are a mine of wealth for the discerning publicist, who will ono day work that mine in such a manner that the immense unpaid services of scientific workers in New Zealand since tlie founding will be better understood and valued. EARLY RUTHERFORD PAPERS. Botany has been mentioned, because New Zealand is botauically rich, but in zoology, geology, anthropology, and other sciences wonderful virgin, material has received equally brilliant treatment. And apart from, the localised studies, the universal note has been touched by master hands. In 1894 and 1895 Ernest Rutherford (now Lord Rutherford of Nelson) published his first scientific papers in the ‘ Transactions.’ Such well-known authors as Sir Walter Buffer, J. Buchanan, B. Best, A. W. Bickerton. W. Colenso, T. F. Cheesemau, C. Cbilton, A. Dendy, T. H. Kasterheld, Sir James Hector, A. Hamilton, H. Hill, G. Hogben, Captain Frederick Hutton, W. B. Hudson, Sir Julius Von Haast, T. Kirk, R. M. Laing, P. Marshall, A. M‘Kay, W. M. Haskell, E. Meyrick, A. K. Newman, D. Petrie, T. J. Parker, J’. H. Potts. W. Skey, H. Suter, R. Speight, W. T. L. Travers, and G. M. Tliomson were consistent writers to the 1 Transactions of the New Zealand institute.’ From the institute’s inception to the present time, sixty-three volumes of the ‘ Transactions ’ have appeared, containing 3,774 original contributions. These have been valued by other scientific institutions throughout the world, and by exchange with these institutions the institute has built up a scientific periodical library that is admitted to be the largest and most valuable library of its kind in New Zealand. At present exchange of publications is effected with 330 different libraries, and there is an increasing de-

mand from other libraries, for thd ‘Transactions.’

On occasions the institute has been a publisher of other things than the ‘ Transactions.’ It published in 1896 a standard work on Maori art by A. Hamilton. It also published four series of biological bulletins by Major Broun and H, N. Dixon. SIR JAMES HECTOR. No word about the institute is complete without a tribute to its initial director, the first “ manager ” of the New Zealand Institute, Sir James Hector, who in New Zealand added to his already High reputation as a scientist in Canada and as the intrepid leader of a section of the Palliser expedition and ■ the discoverer of the Kicking Horse Pass in the Rockies, which was destined to become the route of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The Act of 1867 empowered the institute to organise general meetings for the promotion of science, and with that aim and to provide that almost essential contact of mind with like mind, the first science congress was organised and held in Christchurch in 1919. This proved on unqualified success, and science congresses on the lines of the meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science became an established part of the institute’s programme. ADMINISTRATION OF TRUSTS. Much might be said of important researches carried out by the institute A members with the financial aid of grants administered by it; of the administration, also, of numerous trusts (the Hector, Hutton, Hamilton) from which awards and grants for research are made; of the Carter bequest, an important fund for the erection of an astronomical' observatory; and (more lately) the T. K. Sidey Summer Time Fund, from which an award is mads lor notable contributions in radiation. For some time it had been felt that? the identity of the New Zealand Institute was in danger of being lost 'in the maze of other institutes that had arisen throughout the country. Every organisation of trade, profession, op culture claimed the title “ Institute. and the significance of the “ New Zealand Institute ” was lost except to those who were more or less closely associated with it. It was considered that the time had come to do more than assert that the New Zealand Institute was in New Zealand analagoiu* to the Royal Society of London and that in view of its service and prestige it ivas worthy of the Royal title. Accordingly application was made through His Excellency the GovernorGeneral, and advice was duly rcceivecf that His Majesty the King had been graciously pleased to grant the desired permission to the institute to adopt the title, “ Royal Society of New Zealand.”

The present officers of the Royal Society of New Zealand are:—Honorary patron, His Excellency, Lord Bledisloe; president, Professor R,Speight, . Christchurch; vice-president* Mr B. C. listen, Wellington; honorary editor, l>r P. Marshall, AYellington.