SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 72, 19 December 1918, Page 6

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

NEW ZEALAND'S NEED OF EFFICIENCY. "The people who look upon the end of the war as the beginning of a millennium will be disappointed," said the president of the New Zealand Employers' Federation (Mr. T. Shailer Weston) yesterday. "New Zealand lias enjoyed steady prosperity during the past, four years. Now, however, the world will have to face the economic competition of Germany and Austria, whose populace must be content with a low standard of living and/ small wages, and of Japan, who has accumulated 'largo stores of capital, and is opening up new avenues of trade as a direct result of the war. To meet this competition, highly-paid workers must learn that hi?li wanes re- f quire to be accompanied by high efficiency. Employers also will liavo to recognise that methods of management and manufacture 'must Iμ constantly reviewed and brought up" to date, and may have to be content in some industries with a, smaller return for capital than .they have enjoyed in more prosperous times. A close study of Taylor's works upon industrial efficiency nnd of (lie working of American industries will well repay both employer and.employee, and enable them both to improve their earnings. "Necessity is the mother of invention, and if the same qualities of inventiveness, ingenuity, and painstaking investigation on scientific lines are. shown in future production as in the war industries of the Inst few years, Hip inroads made} by the war into the world's store of reproductive capital will soon be mado good. Judicious State a?sistnneo . and supervision such as we heyn had in New Zealand in cnnneclion with fie developpient of the dairy induft'-v will be helpful in Hiis connection Scientific research must be encnurac">d as applied to our special New Zenlniu! problnms. po that thprc may bp reduction of wostp and a utilisation of waste products, and by t,l>p application of pcipuce to inmrovp oiir daily operations savings may bp effected. With this dbjpct in view, this federation ought to support the scheme unon which it was consulted for the institution of a board of scientific research as snwfltpd to the OovrnpTMit hr thn Special Compiitteo of the New Zealand Institutp."