influential in the land. Secondly, cheap fuel goes to the root of all 
secondary, and some primary, industries. This must be had at any 
cost. Thirdly, cheap and effective transport includes not only railroad 
and steam-ship carriage, but that no less important factor, transport 
by road. Scientific road-making and maintenance is one of the most 
important desiderata in Australia to-day. Most of our roads are 
execrable, which throws a heavy and perpetual burden upon all industry. 
[f the Institute could introduce up-to-date methods of road-making 
into the Commonwealth, and do no more, it would more than justify 
its existence. Then there is the remaining factor of organization. 
This is many sided. It connotes such matters as the proper 
selection of factory areas so as to secure efficiency in handling and 
convenience to the workers, Take the position to-day in Melbourne, 
Australia’s first manufacturing capital. Here the factories are mixed 
up in residential areas, often far removed from the railway and wharfage 
accommodation; often, also, far from the homes of the workers. This 
kind of Topsy-like growth spells costly production, and. inability to 
compete on equal terms with more efficient rivals. - Then there is quite 
another phase of organization, that inextricably connected with the word 
standardisation. Are manufacturers to be asked to consider every fad, 
every prejudice, of a hundred and one consumers, or is there to be some 
limit, and consequently some possibility of economy, in production? 
Then, again, are dozens of manufacturers going to continue to produce 
according to scores of patterns, or are some to have a virtual monopoly 
of some lines and others of other lines, thus still further aiding economy 
of production and ability to compete? Standardisation is a weapon of 
great fineness. It can win where the cruder weapon of the protective 
Tariff fails. Without standardisation as a condition precedent no Tariff 
wall could have been built high enough to have made it possible for Aus- 
tralian manufacturers to roll tramway rails in Australia with our 
present population, and consequently limited demand. There is another 
side to standardisation. How long is the Commonwealth going to be 
content to be the dumping-ground of the rejected goods of the world 
Watches that will not keep time; thermometers that cannot once, except 
by accident, accurately measure the temperature; matches that will not 
strike; boots that will not wear; and a thousand and one things that 
are mere frauds may come into the Commonwealth to-day with impunity. 
One day science will fix standards of quality as well as standards of 
size and weight. It is a shame that our producers and our manufac- 
turers are compelled to compete against such obvious deceptions, and 
that our consumers are not protected against such transparent fraud. 
Science must and can help. This will come within the province of the 
Bureau of Standards. 
It would be impossible, even were it desirable, to cover the whole 
field that lies before the scientific workers of the Commonwealth. ‘Their 
labours affect every home, every occupation, every aspiration. They 
go to the very root of our material progress, of our national well-being. 
and of our racial security. Who ever had a greater task! 
