PRESIDENT S ADDRESS. 15 



in the past the powerful aid of science and scientific research in 

 ,£feneral and inclustrial development It has heen following too 

 much the lead of Cireat Britain, and has been perhaps too much 

 inclined to regard the scientific departments of the Government 

 as not of primary imjjortance, since they are not immediately 

 productive in the commercial sense. The totally inadecjuate 

 salaries paid to the personnel of Government scientific depart- 

 ments is perhaps an indication of the place which their work 

 has occupied in the general ])lan of the nation. Only recently 

 a protest was made in connection with an advertisement for 

 a mycologist — who had to be a University graduate — at the 

 princely remuneration of £i8o per annum. Science may be its 

 own reward, but even the poor scientist must live. 



Btit all this is going to be changed. Science has gained 

 immensely in ))restige since the war began. The conse(|uences 

 of the neglect of science and technical training have been brought 

 home to such an extent, that terrible as that conflict is, there can 

 be no question that it has served to vitalise, as nothing else could 

 have done, the British nation ; and, perhaps, the greatest lesson 

 of the war has been the realisation of the necessitv of greater 

 scientific methods in relation to industry. The appeals of scien- 

 tific and technical men, which have so often been disregarded 

 by apathetic, self-satisfied and conservative manufactttrers, pur- 

 '■uing rule-of-thumb and obsolete methods, and, by their inaction, 

 allowing .'^o often the fruits of British brains to be exploited in 

 Germany, would now appear to be falling on receptive ears, 

 and we welcome the pros])ecl of a new era for science and 

 scientific methods. We must realise that the whole fabric of 

 industry is based on science, and Governments are now recog- 

 nising it as their duty to embark on a more enlightened policy by 

 promoting scientific research on a national scale. It is for asso- 

 ciations such as this to see that the new ideals are maintained. 



The Union (jovernment established, about a year ago, an 

 Industrial Advi.sory Board of business men, to which a technical 

 member was at a later date added. But as a result of the re- 

 presentations of the Central Committee of the Scientific and 

 Technical Societies of South Africa, on which this Association 

 was fully represented, the Government agreed in March of this 

 year to the apix)intment of a Scientific and Technical Research 

 Committee to assist the Industries Section of the Department of 

 Mines and Industries in providing for Industrial Research, co- 

 ordinating, as far as |x)ssible, all industrial investigation and 

 research in South Africa, and collecting and disseminating all 

 data obtained ; in co-operating with other Government Depart- 

 ments, and with similar departments in the United Kingdom 

 and Dominions to obtain information already available, so as to 

 avoid overlap])inci', to take ad\'antage of facilities for research 

 not available in this country, and to acquire and utilise in the 

 arts and manufactures knowledge already existent in countries 

 which are more highly developed industrially than South Af- 



