SCIENCE CONGRESS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 10, 10 January 1913, Page 5

SCIENCE CONGRESS.

INTERESTING DISCUSSIONS. Melbourne, January 9. The council of .(ho Science Congress cabled Professor Russel Wallace its greetings on bis ninetieth birthday, and an appreciation of his illustrious life and work. Mr. Dyer, the Government expert at the Maffra beet sugar factory, in a paper, claimed that there was no leason why the culture of beet sugar should not attain as high a posit on in maintaining the fertility cf Austral an soils as it had in reclaiming those of Europe and America. Professor Fawsith (Sydney), in his presidential address in the chemistry section, said that the greatest development of this generation was the gradual but sure reduction cf chemistry to an exact science. Mr. F. Schann, dealing with military science, said that the defence scheme had already created a marked effect for the better observance of law and order amongst young Australians. THE DISCOVERY, OF AUSTRALIA. Melbourne, January 9. At the Science Congress, Mr. Petherick (Sydney) claimed that Australia was discovered over 400 years ago by a Portuguese navigator named Delope, accompanied by Respucci, for whom the honour is claimed of first making the American coast. Mr. Petherick also stated that he possessed evidence showing that the coast of Westralia was visited by Europeans as far back as 1499.

LABOUR AND THE SOCIAL SYSTEM. (Received 9.20 a.m.) Melbourne, January 10. At the Science Congress, Dr. Mercer, Bishop of Tasmania, in a paper entitled “Labour as a Basis cf the Social System,” said the market prices were almost entirely the result of the automatic working of social forces. It was hard to find a satisfactory substitute for labour, which was not the sole source of value. Land and capital, apart from the questions of State and individual ownership, have their part to play. “We may grant that a living wage must be established,” said the speaker, “but we must preserve a large sphere for industrial freedom in the system of free exchanges in open markets if industrial stability is to be assured.” DRIFT OF AUSTRALIAN ENERGY Dr. Spnngtborpe, in an address entitled “Some Desiderata in Australian Hygiene,” said Australian energy was enterprising and progressive, and free to act beyond most others, but Australians failed to see evolution as a factor in both progress and production, and devoted their energies to remedies other than prevention. They relied far more upon legislation than obedience. "“WAGES.” (Received 9.40 a.m.) Mr. Johnston, the Tasmanian Government’s Statistician, in a paper on wages, said that the standard of living of the people as a whole could only be raised by cheapening the cost of commodities, and a further improvement in labour-saving machinery, and the allied natural forces. An arbitrary increase of nominal wages, if restricted to a few industries, might increase both nominal and real wages, or the purchasing power of wage earners belonging to those trades, but if this mere raising of nominal wages were too widely extended, it would tend to lose its advantage to those included, owing to the fact that they were consumers as well as producers.