August 7, 1919] 



NATURE 



447 



Waite. On relinquishing control in the museum Sir 

 Edward was appointed honorary curator in ethnology, 

 which position he filled to the time of his death. 

 L, M. Harwood, 

 Acting General Secretary. 

 Public Library, Museum, and Art Gallery 

 of South Australia, Adelaide, South 

 Australia, June 4. 



LABOUR AND THE HIGHER VALUES. 



AFTER the weary and fruitless efforts of the 

 past century by those engaged in enlarging 

 the boundaries of truth to educate their masters 

 to an appreciation of the national importance of 

 such higher values, it is a relief to turn to their 

 frank espousal by the representatives and spokes- 

 men of Labour in this country and in America. 

 To those for whom Labour stands for everything 

 that is evil in the best of all possible worlds and 

 who are content to absorb their judgments on 

 contemporaneous problems with their breakfast, 

 such a view will be bizarre. But scientific men 

 who are accustomed to deal with facts, and form 

 their conclusions therefrom, cannot fail to be 

 interested in the very marked growth of apprecia- 

 tion in the humanitarian value of their work which 

 has occurred in the ranks of organised Labour. 



At its recent Atlantic City convention, as an- 

 nounced in last week's issue of Nature, the 

 American Federation of Labour resolved ade- 

 quately and generously to support the activities 

 of the Federal Government in pursuing, strength- 

 ening, and extending a broad programme of 

 scientific and technical research as being of major 

 importance to the national welfare. The resolu- 

 tion was based on five grounds : That the work 

 forms the fundamental basis of all modern in- 

 dustry; that the increased productivity and well- 

 being of the whole population ensuing therefrom 

 are of far greater value than the cost of the 

 work; that, after all possible methods of re- 

 adjustment, there is a limit to the increase of the 

 average standard of living in the community, 

 which can be raised only by research and the 

 utilisation of research in industry; that it is 

 necessary for the solution of many of the most 

 pressing problems immediately confronting the 

 Governments; and, lastly, that the war has 

 brought home to all the nations engaged in it the 

 overwhelming importance of science and tech- 

 nology in war or peace. 



In this country the Labour Party in_ its 

 Report on Reconstruction last year, entitled 

 "Labour and the New Social Order," in- 

 sisted on greatly increased public provision 

 being made for scientific investigation and 

 original research in every branch of know- 

 ledge, and for the promotion of music, 

 literature, and the fine arts, upon which any real 

 development of civilisation depends. It is humili- 

 ating also to note that it should have been a 

 deputation from the Education Committee of the 

 Labour Party who found it necessary to point out 

 to the President of the Board of Education the 

 grave injury done to the cause of education by the 

 NO. 2597, VOL. 103] 



exclusion from the older universities of nfien 

 without money but with brains, and the welcome 

 apparently accorded to men with money but with- 

 out brains. 



So far as the evidence goes, the causes of 

 scientific education and scientific research at least 

 seem to stand to profit enormously by the advent 

 of a Labour Government. The view, of course, 

 may be taken that this is the traditional lip-service 

 to the higher values paid by all political aspirants 

 for power alike, though the political expediency of 

 expressing such sentiments in this country is not 

 obvious. At least, if it be mere vote-hunting 

 demagogy, it is of a startling and original kind ! 



Labour may be trusted to make one important 

 contribution to government which has been too 

 long lacking, in that it cannot fail to realise the 

 fundamental importance of the productive and 

 creative elements in the community. It is not 

 likely to make the mistake of putting the cart 

 before the horse, an amusing illustration of which 

 is our habit of speaking of commerce and in- 

 dustry. One may expect that if it intends to 

 foster scientific research its efforts, however mis- 

 taken, will not be open to the interpretation that 

 the resources of the State will be used for the 

 exploitation rather than the encouragement of the 

 research worker. 



Sums, by previous standards munificent, have 

 recently been voted by Parliament for fostering 

 scientific research. What scientific investigators 

 have so far mainly got is a set of rules and condi- 

 tions that some lawyer had drawn up presumably, 

 by which any investigator who is so hard-up as 

 to accept money from this source puts himself 

 outside the law with regard to any commercial 

 rights that may ensue from his work and vests 

 them in the Government. Willing as scientific 

 men may be that their brains should be exploited 

 for the benefit of the community, it must be 

 remembered that the community is a vague term 

 comprising drones as well as workers. Those to 

 whom the destinies of civilisation have been en- 

 trusted during the past century have not shown 

 themselves either very generous or very intelli- 

 gent in their appreciation of the higher values 

 which make for national well-being and prosperity. 

 Under them, slums and millionaires have been 

 the chief output of creative science, which cer- 

 tainly could not be in worse hands under Labour. 

 The intense appreciation of the higher values that 

 is growing up among the leaders of Labour is 

 perhaps the most hopeful sign of the times, and 

 the education of the workers into the real aims, 

 uses, and aspirations of science now, more than 

 ever, calls for the co-operation and support of 

 scientific men. F. SoddyI 



AUSTRALIAN RAINFALL.^ 



IN the continent of Australia rainfall is by far 

 the most important meteorological element to 

 the agriculturist, there being large tracts of 

 qountry where the annual precipitation is barely 



1 " Th« Australian Environment (especially as Controlled by Rainfall).' 

 By Dr. Griffith Taylor. Pp. iS8+plates. (Melbourne, 1918.) 



