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SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. ~ : 
—_—]4 
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No competent scientific investigator need fear the coming of the 
Institute. It will not attempt to do work that others are doing already. 
There is more than sufficient work for all. No one needs to look round 
for a job. ‘They are everywhere at hand. While there is still dust in 
Sydney’s streets, or smoke issuing from the chimney stacks at the 
factories at Footscray, while there is waste timber being eternally burnt 
around the saw-mills of the West, while the molasses expressed from the 
sugar-cane of the North still finds its way down to the sea, who can deny 
the width of the field for scientific investigation? While the rich lands 
of Queensland are continually being given over to the prickly pear, and 
arable areas of Victoria to St. John’s wort, while artesian water ceases 
to flow, or the bores to corrode, while stock die of strange diseases in the 
night, and their young perish before birth, while there are still mineral. 
treasures that have not yet been exploited by the prospector, while ait 
transport is still with us an undeveloped means of locomotion, while 2 
thousand and one articles of daily use are still being imported from 
foreign lands that could easily be manufactured by our own people, 
who will say that there is no room for science ? 
Hitherto in Australia, and in most other English-speaking countries; 
the scientist is only now beginning to get back some of his own. In the 
past there has been observable a certain suspicion of science. The 
primary producer used to regard the man of science as a dreamer or ab 
best a theorist. They talked of Collins-street farming. The scientifi¢ 
man, on his part, had little respect for those who allowed their actions 
to be hampered by the ideas of their grandparents. But gradually it 
was seen by producers that the man of science had something to teach 
them if they were only prepared to listen, and if he was willing to expres? 
his thoughts in every-day language. The man on the land no longet 
despises science as he did a quarter of a century ago—at least, the mor 
progressive do not. The manufacturers are not precisely in the sam? 
plight. With some few and notable exceptions, they have been inclined 
to ignore the lessons of science. ‘The scientists themselves are somewhat 
to blame for this, or, at any rate, they have themselves to thank. Busi 
ness men have one test of value, and that is cost. Scientists who love 
their science place it above money. Much of the most valuable scientifi¢ 
work done in the world has been done for a pittance. The reward of 
the investigator was not necessarily expressed in the augmentation of his 
banking account. Business men could not understand this. Services 
that could be had cheaply were nasty. If they were valuable, they would 
be much sought after in the market. So argued these men of affairs, an : 
this was the basis of those advertisements asking for the services of fully: 
‘qualified chemists at £200 a year or less. These bad old days must end- 
if science is to come into her own. In the field of science the laboure! 
is worthy of his hire. : 
| 
The Institute is the youngest Department of the Commonwealth 
Government. It is not yet old and effete, with a large number of it% 
officers eagerly looking for the retiring age. It represents the young 
Commonwealth, youthful and virile, and realizes, as it has been ex<_ 
pressed, that “the frontier of knowledge is the starting point 0} 
research.” ; : | 
Fr. MG. 
