SCIENCE ON THE MARCH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23781, 8 October 1940, Page 6

SCIENCE ON THE MARCH

In Dr. Marsden's address last evening on science in relation to •war were emphasised facts worth vigorous practical heed. "This is a scientific war," lie truly said, "and the chief factor in its decision will be the employment of the methods of science quickly and to best advantage." The chief and most masterful enemy now being faced is, as in the last Great War, a nation thoroughly alive to the necessity of this approach to every practical problem of the conflict, a nation that made its first historic bid for commercial prosperity by seizing upon every opportunity to displace Britain in the realm of applied science. How largely it succeeded is among the commonplaces of modern history. King George V., among, others becoming - painfully aware of the need for a British arousal, was moved to utter his memorable appeal, the ringing note of which was "Wake up, England!" There was an awakening. It was made painfully effective by recall of the British negligence that had allowed men o£ science to go unrewarded.

Some of them, notably pathfinders in research into aniline dyes, went to Germany after being deniedrecognition in their own country; against their wills, it m,ay be soberly said, they contributed to the potential enemy's advantage, for associated with the coal-tar experiments that yielded the dyes were researches related to explosives. This is a symptomatic happening of the kind noted in Dr. Marsden's statement, "Probably the real lesson of 1914-18 was that there is need for a scientific approach to the problem of war in its entirety.'- The lesson is being learned, as to-day's news tells, in the very school of production then attended all too lazily, that of technical progress in the making of dyestuffs. But it must be studied earnestly in every class of production, not least by New Zealanders, and for the sake of more than the war effort. The fight for civilisation will be inadequately successful if its victory be not followed by a peace in which science llourishes.