VALUE OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

Northern Advocate, 31 January 1936, Page 2

VALUE OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

TARDINESS OF APPLICATION CRITICISED DUNEDIN, This Day. In his presidential address to the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry. Professor F. P. Worley. Professor of Chemistry at the Auckland University .College, made charges of tardiness in the application of chemistry to agriculture and industry in New Zealand, and a lack of organised and concentrated research.

City councils had yet to learn the value of efficient, scientific guidance. No private corporation on the scale of the larger municipal councils could afford to be without an efficientlystaffed laboratory, controlling by analysis and tests, the large purchases of material, supervising scientifically such

operations as water purification, sewerage treatment and road formation, and dealing with the corrosion and choking cf mains, the utilisation of waste products from municipal abattoirs, and the use of fuels and other problems. "Research in all its branches in New Zealand has been, and still is. largely haphazard," said Professor Worley.

"The chemical researches carried out at the university colleges, although frequently of considerable merit, are, in the main, research exercises carried out by candidates for the Master of Science degree. Through lack ot adequate staffing and finance, it has been impossible for colleges to undertake systematic investigation of the larger problems connected with the development of our natural resources." Countries of greater enlightenment had no hesitation in devoting to research amounts commensurate with the magnitude of the problem, and the profits likely to accrue.