THE H.B. TRIBUNE SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 1934. INVENTION, THE JOB-MAKER.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 97, 7 April 1934, Page 6

THE H.B. TRIBUNE SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 1934. INVENTION, THE JOB-MAKER.

The development of natural science, with its accompanying inventions, discoveries and labour saving devices, has often been made the scapegoat for all the ills with which industrial and commercial enterprises are afflicted. The advance of science has been regarded in many quarters as the chief cause of unemployment. When a machine is invented that does the work of ten men and requires one man to operate it, the argument is that obviously nine men are put out of work. From the wider point of view, however, the manufacture and maintenance of the machine itself must be taken into account as affording employment in another sphere. But there are other ways in which the criticisms of the activities of natural scientists may be met. Thus, in general terms, President Roosevelt said recently in tliis connection: “The idea that science is responsible for the economic ills which the world has recently experienced can be questioned. It would be more accurate to say that the fruits of current scientific thought and development, properly directed, can help to revive industry and markets for raw materials.” With the help of that encouraging message, the scientists of America have gathered in a conference which is to last for a month; and it is one of their objects to illustrate by actual examples the truth of the President’s opinion. One has but to think of such new inventions as the radio, sound cameras and loud speakers, together with the host of “gadgets’ and new devices previously unthought of, to understand that such creations must help rather than hinder the employment market. In detail, the scientists have calculated that in America new machine tools have created 87,000 jobs, electrical devices 1,000,000, radio 100,000, motion pictures 389,000, telephonic inventions 357,000, aeroplanes 50,000, rayon 41,000, refrigeration 72,000 and automobiles 2,400,000; and so on, down a long list. It is further worked out that , the percentage of the population gainfully employed has steadily increased since 1880, and it is pointed out that unemployment totals as such must be looked at against the background of population.

A group of scientists has brought forward the additional argument that not only has the growth of natural science in its application to industry brought with it the creation of new work that was previously unknown, but has given a definite check to the tendency to undertake aggressive wars, thereby adding an inestimable contribution to the social well-being of humanity.

Some clear thinking is needed here. From one point of view there is nothing but condemnation for the multiplicity of means whereby human life may be put in jeopardy or destroyed, but from another, more enlightened and more far-reaching point of view, the increase in the deadliness of war weapons means at the same time an increased hesitation to make use of them because of retaliatory consequences as well as of humanitarian considerations.

What is needed is a wider education of the public in the essential meaning of scientific development. It will go on in any ease, for the inquiring and probing instinct can never be stifled on any prudential grounds. Knowledge must grow from more to more, and it is naturally possible that it may be misused; but with the growth of scientific achievements it must not be forgotten that it is equally likely that there will be an increase of the realisation of man’s responsibility to man. Let the pessimists argue as they will, the world’s experience of war and its knowledge of the possibilities latent in more war, act as a deterrent. Science has not wrought in vain.