CO-ORDINATION

Hokitika Guardian, 4 February 1926, Page 4

CO-ORDINATION

SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. OPINIONS OF AN EXPERT. AYEI.I.INGTON. Feb. 2. Sir Frank I lentil, wlm is to report mi the question as to how New Zeal.ml science can best assist our .secondary industries by research, arrived by the .Mamma to-day, and conferred with the New Zealand Advisory Committee. lie will he making enquiries in New Zealand for six weeks. His investigations in Australia have convinced Sir Frank Heath of the very great difficulty of thinking out and applying a sufficiently wide method of dealing with so \ ast a subject—vast because there was not a single industry that did not require deep thought. “The chief trouble in this conned ion.” lie says, “is the lack of men, capable of moving into unknown fields, and solving problems which nc'od elucidation. INSTRUCTED PUBLIC OPINION. “It is not surprising.” he says, “i.ecniifio that was the chief difficulty that the Mother Country had to fare ten years ago when she became convinced lliat there must he a systematised effort to bring science to a solution ol the problems which we saw would follow the war. AVe made a cardul survey of the output of otir 1 Diversities. and we came to the conclusion that the number of men who went from the. Universities with honours and then went on to study the technicalities involved in original research. was altogether too low. Tt is surprising that, with a population of less than C. 000.000, ,ainli with less than halt the number of f niversifies

io be found in Britain, Australia should experience Unit difficulty? It cannot be expected that a man will lie successful in breaking new ground if bis only experience lias been the reproduction ol other men’s work, and Ihe recording of that work io lb? satisfaction of an examiner. “I lie very first tiling in this work is io find and train our men. ami to have the Government supported in this matter by an instructed public opinion. That. T look- upon as a very first necessity.” Sir Frank Heath is or thu opinion that then? must be a co-ordinating department over this scientific work, and there must be co-operation between the Dominions overseas .and Great Britain in regard to science and industry. PRIMARY INDUSTRIES. “The most urgent necessity in the way of scientific rsearch is a more concentrated attack upon the problems of the primary industries. It is the export of the primary industries that is paying for the National Debt of tlie Dominions.” .Tie points out that although the dairy industry has mad? great strides in output, it has had less done for it

on the scientific 'side than has lice done for other primary industries.

A 30UXD FOUNDATION. “The secondary industries of the country give scope to a type of intellectual activity fundamentally scientific v.Tiich the primary industries in themselves can never do. They give an opening to n highly trained type of mind, without which a modern nation cannot fully develop itself. Fverv nation must have within itself the means of facing the problems which may arise when it comes to the arbitrament of arms. “I have said before.” lie stated, “that knowledge is not a thing that you can buy from the other fellow like a pound of huth’r. Knowledge lias to be made where it is used, and it must be as wide, as complete and as full as possible. If a nation advisedly set itself out merely to be the producers of the fruits of the earth, it "ill not have the necessary intellectual capacity for fulfilling all the duties of nationhood. At the same time a country should he built four square upon a sound foundation of agricultural life.” I