NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20072, 9 October 1928, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

COMMONPLACE MARVELS. "Wireless is now such a commonplace that commonplace people have ceased to wonder. They pay ten shillings a year and criticise. Our children in a few years will dcorn it such an everyday thing that some of them will become blase," said the Rev. W. R. Wilkinson in the Hartley lecture. "Yet, think of it! All through the ages the vibrations of the ether have been waiting to be attuned. Only in tins century have we caught a glimpse of the truth that, makes the music of the spheres vocal for us. Let the wonder of it not be lost. A while ago a friend rang me up on the telephone. We chatted togelhei though a few miles distant, as though alongside one. another. Then ho said. 'There is a concert at Queen's Hall tonight being broadcast. Listen !' Ho placed his headphono to the mouthpiece of his telephone. The band in the Queen's Hall began playing a piece by Beethoven, and I heard it as though in the hall. For that wonder to become a commonplace will bo to suffer degradation of the soul."

TILE HARVEST OF THE SEA. "If wo develop tho natural resources of the sea with vigour and the greatly improved capacity for direction wo now possess, wo shall in this new sphere lead the world just as in years gone by wo led the world in industrial production," says the lion. 0. A. McCurdy, in the Daily News. "Let us realise that tlio sea is capable of providing, with a prodigality hitherto undreamed of, the food needs of the entire world. At present the. majority of tho population of the Old World is underfed because foodstuffs cost so much. Ilickcts and other deficiency diseases take an annual toll of millions of lives, great numbers of which arc sacrificed needlessly in view of tho immensity of tho volume of foodstuffs awaiting the gathering from tho sea. Take a quick glanco at the area of tho sea. There aro 3000 miles between Great Britain and tho United States. How much of it is fished at all 1 We know that none of it is fished as it will bo fished when the now industrial revolution has become an accomplished fact. Tho 19th century saw the last natural resources of tho continents of tho world parcelled out and divided up. Tho sea, far greater in area than all tho continents of tho world put together, is free, except for little fringes of territorial waters around tho coasts. Wo have an opportunity to repeat in a new sphere the success we won in iuduslry." SCIENCE AND BUSINESS. Tho necessity for a closer liaison between men of science and men of business was emphasised by Sir Arthur Keith, retiring president of tho British Association, in a speech at a luncheon given to leading members of the association by tho Glasgow Chamber of Commerce. "Scientific men stand, not as an isolated body, but as the servants not only of luiowleilgo but of tho Empire," Sir Arthur said, "Tho course of events has determined that. wo. as a people, must livo not on the land but on our brains. Our standard of life i? no longer ou- acreage but our brain capacity-and our science; that is why the business man of England must back science. People say that wo aro overcrowded. Wo shall nevor bo overcrowded until wc reach tho limit of our mental capacity. We have not yot reached tho limit. Wo can do much moro. It is mental capacity which is the backbono of our nation. Business men to-day constitute the army in the fiold; men of science aro tho army in reserve, and I think wo are making tho ammunition of tho army in iho field." Sir Josiah Stamp said that at one timo it was quite true to say that commerce was entirely unscientific and scienco entirely uncommercial, but thero was growing up an increasing sympathy between them, and cotnniorco was taking over some of the broad principles on which scienco was built and was applying thc:n to increasing UUCCCfI*.