SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
the tick pest, or (2) because they are of such far-reaching importance 
as to demand the full weight of the Commonwealth’s resources, as for 
example the prickly pear problem. No State single handed can hope to 
solve these .problems.. They will tax the ingenuity of the best minds of 
the continent. és ; *. 
Still another point is the necessity for preventing undue overlapping 
of effort. To some extent overlapping has its beneficial side. _ Different 
minds tackle similar problems from different angles, and no one can say 
beforehand in which direction solution lies. But overlapping can. be 
carried to ridiculous extremes. ‘There is much scientific work that need 
be done once only. It would be absurd to put a scientist, for scientists 
are scarce, on to precisely the same problem in each State. Yet that is 
what to some extent is happening to-day, and that is one of the weak- 
nesses of our system of research that the Institute proposes to remove. 
This magazine will help on the process by keeping scientific workers 
informed of the labours of their confréres throughout the Common- 
wealth. ; 
In the past the States too often forgot their scientific workers. They 
employed too few of them, at niggardly salaries, and gave them little 
or no money to spend upon laboratories, apparatus, or books. Then, 
having sown a mere handful of seed, they looked for a great harvest 
all at once. If they were disappointed, they said that their individual 
scientists were lazy, or incompetent, or both, or they blamed science in 
the abstract as being academic and impracticable. If their investment 
of a few pounds in Tattersall’s sweep of science did not forthwith produce 
a winner, then science had failed, according to their view. When the 
dour days of retrenchment came along—as periodically they ever come— 
research work had to be cut off because routine work must continue, and 
there was not money for both. Where, despite all these drawbacks, one 
or other scientist made good—as was the case with Farrer, of wheat- 
breeding fame—they paid him a pittance of a wage during his lifetime, 
and gave him a tardy recognition after his death. Here is a man who 
has added millions sterling to the wealth of Australia. Though this is 
universally recognised, his successors are being treated precisely as he 
was treated by unthinking and unimaginative Governments. No 
scientist worthy of his salt fears the coming of the Institute, but rather 
welcomes it. Where fear is present it is usually allied to conscious 
charlatanism. The incompetent fears the laying bare of his incom- 
petency. That there is quackery in science as there is quackery in 
medicine no one doubts. And the force that threatens to show up the 
quack will not be beloved by the quack. How could it be? 
There is room for all in the wide fields of scientific endeavour. Those 
who realize how much work there is to do are eager to extend the right 
hand of fellowship to every new worker. The task is so big, the problems 
-are so complex, that there is work for all, and to spare. Scientific work 
knows no completion. The labourers in this field may every now and 
then pause and take stock—that is all. Take the text-book on chemistry 
published 25 years ago and compare it with the text-book of to-day. 
Science never rests; never stands still. Every hill of knowledge that is 
climbed merely opens up new vistas for research. There is no end to the 
curiosity of the mind—no limit to the possible stock of human knowledge. 
FM.G. 
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