ANNUAL ADDRESS. XXXV. 



applied iu a haphazard and costly fashion. Much has been 

 accomplished doubtless in the past by the trial-and-error 

 method, but this must more and more give way to the 

 modern and rational one. 



All this is true, and only emphasises the necessity for 

 adopting some better system than we have. There is 

 indeed an added reason for us in Australia to amend our 

 systems of training. In this country, whether it is 

 expressed in so many words or not, a distinct ideal of a 

 great section of the community is, that there shall be short 

 hours of labour, high rates of pay, and a limited number of 

 workers and a limited output by the workers. In so far as 

 these desires imply a determination to prevent sweating 

 and civilized slavery, and the maintenance of a decent 

 average of living in the community, they must command 

 the support of everyone, but it is obvious that these ends 

 cannot be achieved by enactments of Parliament, or decis- 

 ions of Industrial Courts. The only possible means of 

 making such schemes practicable is an extremely high 

 efficiency of the workers. This country in truth cannot 

 afford to have unskilled labour in its midst. So obvious is 

 this statement that it seems almost gratuitous to suggest 

 it, but thus far no attempt has been made to put any such 

 scheme into practice. The providing of an adequately 

 efficient system of industrial, scientific, and technical train- 

 ing for every man and woman in tlic land, who cared to 

 avail themselves of it, would seem to be a natural corollary 

 of our national conditions and system of living. To use a 

 very technical phrase, one would expect to find as a marked 

 ' plank ' in the programme of any party that assumed to 

 legislate for the industrial workers of a community an 

 insistance upon the steady and progressive organisation of 

 such a system of national training. Personally, I should 

 not be surprised to see this question obtrude itself actively 

 into politics. 



