The Taranaki Herald. DAILY EVENING. SATURDAY, JULY 22, 1916. INDUSTRIAL WAR.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 145045, 22 July 1916, Page 2

The Taranaki Herald. DAILY EVENING. SATURDAY, JULY 22, 1916. INDUSTRIAL WAR.

After the war, it is generally agreed, there will be keener rivalry than ever among the industrial nations for the world's trade. Qyrmany is said to ho making immense preparations to recapture the markets she has lost, while nations like America and Japan are profiting now by the opportunities "given them to supply customers whose former sources of supply among belligerents have been cut off. In England and Scotland much attention is already being directed to the measures which must ho taken to recover and retain lost trade. At u meeting of the Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce recently the president. Mr. T. C. (flegg, a brother, by the way, of Mr. Robert Glegg, of Nc\v Plymouth, made a very sensible speech dealing with this question, his advice being applicable to New Zealand as well as to the Mother Country. After referring to the innate conservatism of his countrymen he pointed out that for the successful carrying on and development of our commercial business and industrial life we must look primarily to education. Government assistance, banking facili-' ties, etc., are all valuable, but education is becoming more and more the foundation of economic success. It gives effectiveness to our industries and upon it depends largely the, quality’" of our business men. Aberdeen, he said —and the same applies to other centres ami other countries—has elementary, secondary, and higher education in abundance, but the war lias shown how far behind ,we are in adapting our educational machinery to the material needs of the-nation. Our children are not well equipped for the practical duties of life. Our industries suffer because our scientific: knowledge and research are not associated sufficiently with industrial life and enterprise. There must in future be more co-ordinatiqn between our universities and our schools, our workshops and our counting-houses, if we are to keep a grip of the world’s markets. In Aberdeen itself a lead has been given by the close association existing betweeu the North of Scotland College of Agriculture and the .University. But to quote another industry, suffers for want of a University degree. .The fishing; iudustiy. is.a most im-

portent one to AWdeen, but the important subjects of marine biology, /.oology, the food value of the fishes, and the economics of the subject are neglected. Again if a business firm has extensive foreign connections as often as not it has to employ a foreign clerk to cany on its foreign correspondence because their own clerks arc not competent. From premises like this Mr. (ile.gg argued with much force that the educational machinery must be overhauled in the commercial interests of the country. That applies to New Zealand, where it is encouraging to find that efforts are now being turned in that direction, especially through the technical colleges. Hero we depend chiefly upon primary industries connected with the land and first place ought to be given to technical instruction in subjects dealing with production from the laud. And whatever other industries it is possible to introduce should hr fostered through the technical colleges.