eee 
TO OVERCOME DROUGHTS. 
flocks and herds in the exacting way in which it is done by every 
serious drought? Answers to these or other cognate questions are not 
hard to find. What Australia especially needs to learn is how to cope 
successfully with drought-problems; and to learn that it is necessary to 
understand and take to heart that droughts are teachers, and not a 
curse, since they are a legitimate factor in Nature’s scheme of things 
in this quarter of the globe. Rabbits and prickly pear, &c., may be 
curses, but Nature is not responsible in any way for their foothold in 
Australia. <5 ial 
A recent writer has diagnosed the state of Britain, before her eyes 
_were opened by the war, in the following words*—“ We have sloughed 
our besetting sins in many-mental processes. Before the war, men 
of science were grossly academic and individual; often abstract to the 
point of perverted mysticism; and the line they took encouraged the 
men of commerce to the contempt of pure knowledge. “Men of science; 
merchants, the banks, and the Government were all in watertight com- 
partments, working apart, and more than this, contemning one another. 
The result was that, from the nation’s point of view, the brains of the 
chemist were wasted, the activities of the merchants handicapped, the 
wealth of the banks locked up, and politicians a vain luxury. The 
Brit'sh brain was working; but was a milch-cow for other astuter 
nations.” What is here said or implied about the importance of the - 
co-operation of men of science with commercial men and with Govern- 
ments, and about the national lack of the appreciation and practice of 
it, before the war, is only too true. But the men of science are not, 
equally with others, to blame for it. For, from time to t'me, their 
representative spokesmen have pointed out what was needed, but, their 
warnings and their recommendations have too often failed to arouse 
‘attention or elicit any response. Or, if noticed, their views have been 
dubbed “counsels of perfection,” or “ arm-chair” advice, which the 
“ practical”? man can well afford to ridicule, or neglect altogether. ~ 
Now, in the case of Australia, there is great need-for a closer and 
more effective co-operation of Science with the primary producer, the 
man on the land. With the manufacturer also, but in this case, the 
need can be easily provided for, since all he has to do is to make the 
necessary provision for increasing his staff by the addition of such 
scientific experts, chemists, or whatever they may be, as circumstances 
require. But the case of the primary producer is different, and it 
requires the most earnest consideration. It is necessary for him to 
learn and understand, what he is apt to overlook, or fail to realize the 
importance of—small blame to him, under the circumstances which 
have encouraged it—that there is a theoretical side to his practical 
activities which needs to be taken into account; that in his case, as 
in others, the theoretical side and the practical side are complementary, 
since true theories are merely the generalizations upon which practice 
is to proceed. Now a lack of appreciation of this need of the recog: 
nition of the complementary relations of science and practice in rela- 
tion to drought-problems is plainly in evidence in books and in news- 
paper records; and I shall refer to some of them presently. 
* Thomas, W. B., ‘‘ A Better England—Not a Worse,” Nineteenth Century, No. 514, December, 1919, 
p. 1013. , ‘ “ 5 ; : Ss 
