NO HOLIDAY FOR SCIENCE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22612, 28 December 1936, Page 8

NO HOLIDAY FOR SCIENCE

"To-day great matters turn upon the complicated physical science of the wireless valve'or the intricacies of the internal combustion engine, or the highly skilled chemistry that brings assistance to medicine, or the combination of physics and chemistry, biology and engineering involved in the preservation of food," said Sir William Bragg, in his presidential address to the Royal Society, in answering the suggestion that scientific workers, should take a holiday from discovery and invention. "From this point of view the suggestion that scientific workers might take a holiday looks more ridiculous than ever. No nation could afford such an intellectual disarmament in the face of the world; nor could the world itself in face of the evils that are to be overcome." The application of the new knowledge, he said, might bo seen in improvements in the health and general well-being of the nation, in its industries, in the strength of its trade, and in its powers of defence —all matters of primary importance. "But," lie added, "the resources which a nation possesses are of no use unless there nro the foresight and the skill which arc needed to make use of them."

SEEKING A BASIS FOR PEACE The purpose of British foreign policy was a very simplo one, but singularly difficult to achieve, said the Lord Privy Seal, Lord Halifax, in a recent speech. It was the purpose of pursuing that which was the most vital interest — general peace —and to that end honestly seeking to bring the conflicting elements of the world togother. If that was to bo done it could only bo done by way of agreement between sovereign States. It was a task extremely difficult of accomplishment. There was no need to go further than the British Commonwealth or than Geneva at the time of the last League Assembly to realise how different was the approach of two Dominions, New Zealand and Canada, to the problem of revision of tho Covenant, to see in microcosm how different was the approach of different States to tho problems of tho world. Progress depended upon tho agreement of sovereign States, and that made it difficult to feel faith—in tho presont conditions of thought—in such remedy as an international force. Tho first condition of an international force would he tho certainty that in any of tho multiple wars which it might bo called upon to fight it would always win. In present circumstances this condition was simply not there. It was bocauso, alter the lesson of tho last year, it was reluctant to promiso more than it could perform that the British Government had reached tho view that it was important to try and make tho League more useful and therefore stronger. If they wanted to strengthen tho Covenant by certainty of coercion in tho last resort they could best do that by encouraging nations to establish "strong points" in the peace defensive systom, which they would bo prepared to pledge themselves to defend if these were violently threatened. Tho Government was to-day pursuing the attempt to establish such strong points for peace in Western Europe, it was contributing its best efforts to that, and had recently indicated its views on tho conditions of further progress to the other Governments concerned.