136 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



ployment of lawyers to transfer real estate when the thing can be done more 

 efficiently and more cheaply by registration ; the building of free libraries 

 and cinemas when people have not decent houses ; the lending of money 

 to states that have recently repudiated their debts. Or consider a Board 

 of Education trying to teach boys and girls to spell English ; or the con- 

 tinued distribution of dole to the unemployed without asking anything 

 in return. The verdict of an intelligent observer of these activities would 

 be, ' How can people be so stupid ? ' 



Consider in contrast some eudemonistic activities : the organisation 

 of the Boy Scouts ; the provision of technical education ; the generation 

 of electric power at a cost of less than one penny for 7 horse-power 

 hours ; the manufacture of a yard of cotton fabric containing 15 million 

 interweavings of thread for sixpence ; the broadcasting of speech, audible 

 in any part of the world ; the manufacture of a machine that will fly from 

 America to Great Britain in 15 hours ; the discovery of the internal 

 construction of an atom by noting the position of the bands of the 

 spectrum. 



The verdict of the intelligent observer of these and many other bene- 

 ficent activities would be, ' How can men be so wonderful .'' ' 



In this time of world-depression the question not unnaturally arises 

 whether the engineer (in which term I will include the scientist for 

 brevity) cannot make a useful contribution towards the bettering of condi- 

 tions — something more promising than the totally inadequate measures 

 already proposed. I have chosen this subject because I believe that the 

 application of the engineering mind to our difficulties is much more likely 

 to lead to a satisfactory solution than hopeless debates and discussions 

 upon side-issues that have little to do with essential factors and problems. 

 I propose then to consider shortly — (i) What is wrong with the world ? 

 (2) Why are the proposed solutions inadequate ? (3) How could 

 engineers make things better ? 



(i) There are so many things wrong with the world that I must 

 here confine my remarks to the three main defects, the poverty in 

 material possessions, the poverty in outlook, and the incompetence of 

 the rulers. 



Notwithstanding the fact that civilisation has been developing and 

 extending for centuries and the application of steam power to manufac- 

 ture has been in operation for one hundred years, by far the greater 

 portion of the inhabitants of Europe and America are very poorly supplied 

 with the things that make life full, free, and enjoyable. Indeed, a very 

 large number of these inhabitants exist in want and squalor ; and in some 

 cases the conditions of life are so insanitary and loathsome that we are 

 tempted to ask whether civilisation is not a failure. If we go outside the 

 modern states to the teeming millions of China and India we find that 

 only a little has been done to improve the lot of the peasant, who still lives 

 by bodily toil, and receives no share of that fullness of life which we know 

 to be possible when the machine lightens our labour and education opens 

 the mind to the beautiful things around us. Even in cases where the 

 machine has been introduced, it has often brought about conditions more 

 unhealthy than with the original peasant labour. 



