SCIENTIFIC WORK

Grey River Argus, 22 May 1942, Page 2

SCIENTIFIC WORK

NEED FOR SECRECY AT PRESENT. WELLINGTON, May 20. In his presidential address at the annual meeting of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Lieut.-Colonel G. Archey, of Auckland, said that many members were individually carrying out investigations at. the request of the Government, but the Society as such, had not been asked for its cooperation or advice, as it was (during the last war. That seeming neglect, however, was the result of recommendations 25 years ago, which resulted in the establishment of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. To-day, he said, national security demanded secrecy in science, not only as to results of research, but even as to the nature and direction of the investigations, yet secrecy was the antithesis of the scientific spirit, whose aim should be to promote knowledge. There science found its chief quarrel with Nazi Germany, where, for years, research had been prostituted to create secret machines and secret weapons for sei. fish advantage and for the destruction of other peoples. There was a danger that the concealing of the results of scientific research in the interests of national security might become part of the national policy.