PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. LY 
and when to make aerial descents upon the British coast. 
Side by side almost with the advance of her invading 
armies the meteorological staff progresses so as to render 
the combatant forces such service as they can. 
If Germany, therefore, by this union of scientific know- 
ledge with business ability, has been able to achieve the 
striking results which she has attained, and which are 
costing us so many valuable lives and so much money to 
defeat, it is very obvious that the same means should be 
adopted by us, when the results, I think it is safe to say, 
would be still more successful than those obtained by 
Germany: Not only in the carrying on of the great war 
must this co-ordination be obtained, but when the fighting 
is over, and peace reigns once more, our future behaviour 
must be far different from the past. 
From these remarks it will appear that Australia, to be 
successful in the future, must apply science wherever she 
ean to her national undertakings and her daily work, cor- 
porate and individual. When the white man first reached 
Australia, vast potential resources presented themselves 
before him, but with the blindness of the newcomer their 
value was hardly recognised. To-day, the scales are drop- 
ping gradually from our eyes, and we see how much we 
have already lost by this spendthrift existence—feeding on 
our capital. Our timber has been rapidly cut out, and half a 
eentury will see a timber famine unless means are taken 
to make good the deficiencies. The by-products of many 
industries, especially those of coal, have received but 
seanty recognition, and in many other of our occupations 
we have been content to obtain a satisfactory main objec- 
tive, overlooking almost entirely the side-products that 
pay. It is all very well to say that under the circum- 
stances it would not have paid to conserve these various 
other materials; but what is the good of thinking and 
