SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 August 1916, Page 4

SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

In an address before the Wellington Industrial Association the other night, Professor T. H. Easterfield put bis finger on one of the great needs of New Zealand—the devotion of some money to the prosecution of scientific research. The big competitors wo should have to meet after the war, he said, were the United States and Germany. The latter country had for years insisted on the value of the application of science to industry, and that had led to the expenditure of money in research. In some case; they had bad no return foi years, such as the tase of the production of sulphuric acid, on which £IOO,OOO was spent before it .Yas placed on a commercial 'oasis. Then the profits were enormous. Research work of that character in New Zealand is handiecijped by the fact that we hare no huge m\L enormously wealthy manufacturing companies. The Professor remarked that the £ieat companies and the Colonial Sugar Company, however, employ highly trained experts, and the latter company puts aside a '.drain sum every year to work out some problem in the production of its output. Professor Easterfield, however, wants to see the full organisation of our scientific resources and their proper utilisation. Take the cost of producing flax, he said. If it could not be reduced, a fall in price might cut out three-quarters of a million in our exports. No systematic work bad been done in dealing with the by-pro-ducts- of flax, but if the various associations could be got to see that it would pay them to have the by-products systematically examined, they would do far more good than under the present system of a Government bonus. If such a proposal were put before the Fla-xmillevs' Association, for instance, they might establish a research fund, on a pro rata basis. Investigations by the Government expert into bush sickness in the north had resulted in the utilisation of a million acres of land which were formerly useless. Something is done to encourage scientific research by the University, but it is very little compared with the wide field that awaits investigators, and the Government would be acting with wisdom and foresight if it assisted the Colleges to spend more money in this directions .