CHAIRMAN S ADDRESS. 



CHAIRMAN'S ADDRESS. 



By J. HAYDON OAR/DEW, Assoc. M. Inst. C.B. 



[Read before the Engineering Section of the Royal Society of N. S. Wales, 

 May 16,' 1907.'] 



Of late years it has been the practice of the retiring 

 Chairman of the Engineering Section, to give an address 

 to the members on the last night of his occupancy of the 

 chair; this procedure was arranged by the Committee in 

 preference to the custom which prevails in other similar 

 societies of the incoming chairman giving an address on 

 the first night of his term of office, the idea being, that the 

 chairman who has been your spokesman for the last twelve 

 months, is more fully seized with the doings of the Section, 

 ' and has more time and fuller opportunities for the prepara- 

 tion of an address that is likely to meet with the acceptance 

 and approval of his audience. The subject matter of such 

 an address is always a question of difficulty, not so much 

 because of the lack of material, but more particularly 

 because of its abundance. Another difficulty to be con- 

 tended against in the preparation of such an address is, 

 that we, being so far distant from the centre of the world's 

 greatest activities, can only follow the rapid and startling 

 developments that are daily taking place, through the 

 medium of engineering journals, and consequently the eye 

 is unable to picture on the brain, an adequate idea of what 

 is taking place, and accounts of the most important occur- 

 rences and discoveries in engineering reach us so late, as 

 to be mere echoes of great achievements. 



Speaking as an engineer to engineers, who are Australians 

 either by birth or adoption, and practical men of the world 

 and not mere theorists, I apprehend that the subject 



1— May 16, 1907. 



