A RADICAL SCIENTIST.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1642, 8 January 1913, Page 7

A RADICAL SCIENTIST.

MORE PAY FOE WORKERS WANTED. Br Telosraph—Frees Association—Copyright ~ • London, January 6. Br. Alfred Russell Wallace, tho distinguished 'scientist, and. president of the Land Nationalisation Socioty, in an intcrview, said, that a continual increase in . workers' wages was the most ■ beneficial thing for'any. country.' •;: : ' "Great Britain," ho said, 1 "is the richest; country in the. world,', yet the. bones of .starvation are clanking and rattling, .'["and wo do nothing except say with a /shrug of shoulders 'Let.'om'starve.'" _ The accumulation of wealth was criminal. The problem would bo,'solved if it', was legislated that the unborn should not have rights; then the Stnto would become; the inheritor, and could make ample provision for its heirs. ' A WONDERFUL OLD MAN. , . Dr. Alfred Wallace, 0.M., F.R.S., is a celebrated naturalist,' traveller, and author, whose. fame. is! linked with that of Darwin.' as the co-discoverer of the doctrine of Natural Selection'. He is ninety years old to-day. : The. veteran biologist is one more illustration of scientific longevity. Of Wallace's many works, his "Malay Archipelago" is perhaps the most notable. Tho Royal Society honoured him by; awarding him a Royal gold medal, 1868, and tho Darwin medal in 1890. ' Besides his works'on natural'selection and kindred .subjects Dr. Wallace has written on many topics. In 1881 he published "Miraoles and Modem Spiritualism." In this he gave an account of the reasons which induced him to nccept bewhich are shared by so small a'proportion of scientific men. These reasons were' purely experimental, and in no way connected with Christianity, for lie had long given up all belief in revealed religion.. In 1822 he published "Land Nationalisation," in which rhe argued the necessity for _ State ownership of, land, a principle which he had originated long before the anpcarance of Henry' George's work. In "Forty-five Years of Registra-. tion Statistics" (1885), he maintained that vaccination is useless and dangerous.' Dn Wallace also published an acoount of what he held to ba the greatest discoreries as well as the failures of tho 10th century, The .Wonderful Century" (1899). Possessed of a .bold and intensely original inind his activities have radiated in many directions, and he is apparently attracted rather than repelled by the-unpopularity of a subject.