THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1919. SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17255, 3 September 1919, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1919. SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

In caliing attention to the dependence of industrial development upon scientific research, the Industries Committee of Parliament has evinced and encouraged a serious appreciation of our country's material needs. No enduring prosperity can be won without the skilful direction of production ; and in the competition that now must be faced, in a world whose markets have been widened by the war's influence, brains will count as never before in every stage of wealth's making. Hitherto, we have had the advantages of a country young as well as fertile. Fortune has favoured us. Our natural resources have been abundant and varied. We have enjoyed imperial privileges of trade. So happily circumstanced have we been that with moderate exertion we have reaped great gain. But in the new conditions we can trust to luck no longer with any confidence. Our resources, it is true, are not yet fully exploited, and for our primary products there will still be foreign demand. But a new situation arises wherein unscientific production and haphazard commerce will surely place us at the mercy of more alert bidders for the world's trade. Unless there be practical heed given to the committee's urgings, the wealth that lies in our coals, peats, oils, clays, tim- : hers, flax and other resources will I be of little worth. We cannot hope i to profit greatly by the scientific re- | search undertaken in other countries. Their problems are not ouis. We have our own questions to solve, our own economies to achieve. Within the dictating conditions of our own climate and soil these peculiar problems must be solved. The task will take money: but the expenditure mast be treated as an

investment. It will take time: but we must be content to give science generous opportunity for its service, without demanding immediate and adequate return for the expenditure devoted.

The statement of the committee I that New Zealand appears to be the only British Dominion that has | not organised for scientific research I since the outbreak of the war has a justification that should arouse immediate action. We have in this respect lagged far behind the Mother Country, over whose slow conservatism we have been wont to wax sententious. Before the war was a year old a Committee of the Privy Council, with the Lord President as chairman, was appointed "to direct the application of any sums of money provided by Parliament for the organisation and development of scientific and industrial research." An Advisory Council of eminent scientists was also appointed, and it set at once to work on a register of researches then being conducted and an investigation of all facilities for research. The co-operation of the Royal Society, the Universities, and other learned bodies was obtained. Sub-committees were established to deal with mining, metallurgy, and engineering; and special committees were instructed to give attention to fuel, rubber, cotton, wool, silk, and paper. In the first year £25,000 were devoted to researches directed by the Silk Association and the Sheffield University. Next year, £40,000 were granted ; but the work soon outgrew even this provision. Nothing short of a new government department, with its own estimates and a Ministerial head responsible to Parliament could meet the need. Accordingly, £1,000,000 were immediately voted, the amount being placed at the disposal of the Privy Council for research work during the ensuing five years. Since then, good progress has been made even in years filled with the anxieties of war. Fuel researches, covering coal conservation, utilisation of peat, domestic heating, standardisation of gas, and related subjects, have been continued. In this connection scientific means for cooling and drying the air in deep mines have been discovered, and better apparatus for mine rescue-work has been invented. Concrete, timber, glass, iron, steel, copper, brass, porcelain, silk, lubricants, and steam have all been the subjects of thorough laboratory investigation. The British Parliament and the learned societies have eo-operated in vigorous and successful effort.

The British scheme has been given Imperial proportions, at the suggestion of Australian statesmen —the Minister of Public Works in Victoria and the Premier of New South Wales. In the middle of 1916 the Committee of the Privy Council invited the Overseas Dominions of the Empire to take similar action. Canada has in consequence a Committee of its Privy Council and an Advisory Council working along the lines of the British scheme. The former consists of the Ministers of Trade and Commerce. of the Interior, of Mines, of Inland Revenue, and of Agriculture. The latter has nine members, six being presidents or professors of universities and the remainder representatives «f Canadian industrial interests. South Africa has an Industries Advisory Board and a special committee of ten scientists, forty-eight special problems, each committed to a scientific expert, being already under investigation. India undertook the first overseas research —that of dyeing tussar silk black—the Government paying the whole cost' of the work at the Dyeing School at Cawnpur. Australia's Advisory Council of experts was set up more than two years' ago, and has completed arrangements for a permanent Institute of Science and Industry, has already issued the results of thirteen researches, and publishes an official periodical survey of work in progress. The Federal Government granted £5000 for the initial expenses of the council, and has been pledged by its Prime Minister's word to find any necessary funds up to £500,000. In comparison with these efforts in other parts of the Empire, New Zealand's activity, even when full allowance is made for its smaller size has been pitifully inadequate. The committee's proposals merit the serious attention of the whole coun—a national Board of Science and Industry, co-operating with the university colleges, establishing scholarships, and advising producers and manufacturers, and the provision of sufficient funds for the activities so controlled. To leave such research to the initiative of individual enterprise is for New Zealand a hopeless policy. National organisation, as an aid to that enterprise, on the model of methods adopted and proved elsewhere in the Empire, is an imperative necessity.