WORTH ITS SALT?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 122, 24 October 1941, Page 4

WORTH ITS SALT?

Sir-Had it not been for the harm which J. Harris’s misinformed outburst over 4YA might do to the industrial development of New Zealand, we should have been grateful for the publicity which his talk, and The Listener report which followed it, gave to the book, The Industrial Future of New Zealand, written by Edmund F. Hubbard, and recently published by ourselves. The book came through with flying colours. Mr. Harris, displaying a boundless ignorance of the production of salt, declared that contrary to the opinion of Mr. Hubbard, that commodity could not be economically produced in New Zealand. He spoke as follows: "If new discoveries have been made to alter this, Mr. Hubbard should say so. As it is his statement appears to be one more of the vague and unsubstantiated assertions which appear on every page of the book." Must the compiler of a dictionary substantiate within the dictionary each statement-and to the satisfaction of Mr. Harris? Can anyone in his senses really have mistaken this brief survey for an industrial encyclopedia? Mr. Hubbard was asked precisely how NEW the principle of salt production is and he states that it "Goes back anyway to the time of Lot’s wife." So there have been no new discoveries. And for Mr. Harris’s further information, the Depart‘ment of Industries and Commerce considers the production of salt to be definitely an economic possi-

bility in New Zealand. It is apparent from information to hand that salt can be evaporated from water in New Zealand at a cost of approximately £1 per ton. One half, therefore, of Mr. Harris’s inexplicable attack can be dismissed for ever. The time he spent on the air in making his attack and the space which the report occupied in The Listener were consequently a dead loss to the listeners in the Dominion. Perhaps it was because the book contained not one superfluous word that Mr. Harris was most disconcerted. Such a book is almost a curiosity in a day of literary verbosity. Had Mr. Hubbard reported Mr. Harris’s talk for The Listener it would have been reduced to a sentence: "I assert that contrary to Mr. Hubbard’s opinion salt cannot be manufactured economically ‘in New Zealand." Mr. Hubbard is one of our busiest men, a research scientist who has put in many years of original work proving some of the principles upon which he constructed his handbook. Some of Mr. Hubbard’s investigations are already bearing fruit of industrial importance and will become of enormous national importance in the future. That a layman should take the opportunity to launch a broadcast attack on the professional ability of another -and in so doing make serious errors/-has seemed to many people to be gravely out of place. That this particular book criticism should have been chosen from among three criticisms which Mr. Harris delivered at the same time to be the one reported in The Listener appears to be even more inexplicable. Why was Mr: Hubbard not given an opportunity to reply first? Surely the attack was the most violent ever delivered over the air in New Zealand? . Obviously, The Industrial Future of New Zealand was published to make the people of the country industrially conscious — not to provide Mr. Harris with a course in popular science! Mr. Harris in his outburst attempted to erase some of the good already achieved by this publication. Revealed in his attitude are the same old negativeness and unprogressiveness which have laid a dead hand for so long on our national development. Mr. Harris even complains that much of the information was derived from official sources! He was acquainted with that fact in the Bibliography at the end of the book. Can Mr. Harris suggest a more accurate source? Fortunately the sale of the book and the economic expansion of New Zealand proceed despite the talk and the lengthy report in The Listener. If Mr. Harris teads the book thoroughly he will find that it is constructive, realistic, and clear-cut in conception, and that it was particularly well written. If Mr. Harris comes to Wellington at any time, Mr. Hubbard would, I am sure, be pleased to allow Mr. Harris to watch him achieving in his laboratory things which Mr. Harris would consider impossible, and to see Mr. Hubbard’s staff doing-the things which

Mr. Harris talks about. —

W. STUART WILSON

AND ASSOCIATES

(Wellington).

(Our correspondents find it "inexplicable" that we should have printed, out of all Mr. Harris said during that talk, one mild paragraph about salt. So do we. We could so easily have printed this passage: "The first thing you notice about the book is its appearance. It is got up exactly like a Penguin Book. But there the likeness ends. The cost is seven times as great, the length only about one-eighth of the average Penguin." Or this: "He (the author) then proceeds to survey our resources under various chapter headings, such as " Pastoral Industry, Agriculture, Forestry, Ceramics, Mineral Resources. To call them chapters is perhaps misleading. Some of them contain only a few paragraphs. All are extremely superficial, consisting of little more than a few broad facts culled from the official Year Book, followed by rather vague generalisations." Or this: "The publisher, in the blurb appearing on the cover, speaks of Mr. Hubbard’s ‘intimate knowledge of the resources and potentialities of the country.’ Such a claim is even on the face of it quite absurd." Or this: "For the same price you can get the New Zealand Official Year Book. . . . It, contains all the information presented by Mr. Hubbard and infinitely more besides. It is factually reliable." _-