18 president's address. 



tion, and be can make observations to provide facts on wbicb tbe 

 practical man can work. A scientist does not make, as a rule, 

 wbat is known as a good business man. I think it unlikely that 

 he ever will, but I think a study of the uses made of Science in 

 the last century will teach any one who will examine the question 

 that information obtained by scientific study has been of in- 

 calculable value to the community. Our Government does not 

 especially need advice and direction from scientific persons, and 

 there are so many ready to offer this. It needs scientific workers 

 who will obtain accurate information by making studies on the 

 problems of the hour. Each scientific worker can only do a little. 

 It takes a long time to make precise observations and to conduct 

 experiments. Let me take an illustration. There are millions 

 of bags of wheat stored in Australia. Insects, fungi, and other 

 forms of animal and plant life are destroying that wheat. If 

 every zoologist now^ in Australia worked for a century upon that 

 wheat, there could be no thorough examination of the whole of 

 it. To examine the contents of even a million bags would require 

 a very great time. To determine where an insect or fungus 

 came from, how its grow^th was favoured by various circum- 

 stances, wdiat is the life-history, and at what stage in its devel- 

 opment can the destructive agent be destroyed so that it does 

 not reach the wheat, would take many months. I do not want 

 you to think that I exaggerate. May I remind you that it 

 took many men and many years to obtain some information 

 about the mosquito in its relation to malaria, that to-day we 

 are not in a position to prevent those of our soldiers who go to 

 New Guinea and elsewhere from acquiring the disease by the 

 bite of the mosquito, and that it has taken several years to obtain 

 even a little knowledge of the different mosquitoes scattered over 

 a small portion of Australia^ There is an opportunity for every 

 zoologist in Australia with some acquaintance with entomology, 

 and for every botanist with some knowledge of fungi, to be of 

 service in saving some of that wheat. Is there no way in which 

 the Defence Department can be informed of this simple fact? Is 

 it better that many of these trained zoologists or botanists should 

 be doing none of that work for which they are specially fitted in 



