ROBERT W. HARTLEY 189 



as the first half has seen, we may be in the position to develop better 

 natural resource policies. 



I will not labor this aspect of the question, because earlier papers 

 in this series have already dealt at length with the subject of science, 

 technology, and natural resources. But I do want to bring out one very 

 important point: as the frontiers of man's knowledge advance and as 

 he is increasingly able to control his environment, his understanding 

 of the natural laws that govern the creation and destruction of matter 

 must inevitably become more profound. Public policies in the re- 

 sources field will have to be adjusted to that greater understanding, 

 and such adjustment might not be an easy task. 



For example, Dean Mason mentions the possibility of the de-salting 

 of sea water, to which I would add the possibility of weather control. 

 If these two possibilities together should be realized, our national 

 policies for water and land resources — if they are to be effective — will 

 have to be formulated within an international framework, because the 

 scope of the problems will have become larger than any one nation's 

 jurisdiction. 



I am strongly of the opinion we should start thinking about some of 

 these problems immediately. If the conflict and confusion we have 

 seen over the attempts to achieve international and the national con- 

 trol and exploitation of atomic energy for peaceful uses are any por- 

 tents of the shape of things to come in other resource fields, then I say 

 we had better get to work now on some of the other advances that are 

 looming ahead. 



Finally, I think my first question, about why so little has been at- 

 tempted toward modifying the rate of resource use, can be answered 

 in part by the fact that in the past, our natural resource policies have 

 been adopted piecemeal. The result frequently has been that their 

 total effect has been one of conflicting objectives and of action at cross 

 purposes. 



This brings us to the crucial issue of what the real intent of future 

 public policy should be in the political economy of natural resource 

 use. To limit that intent to conservation alone, as defined in Dean 

 Mason's paper, might not be enough. If the touchstone of future policy 

 is to be only the elimination or lessening of the economic waste in- 

 volved in a faulty time distribution of the rate of use of a natural 



