2110-19-6-4

The Adventure of Scientific Research.

This afternoon I am going to do a bold thing, since one who is no scientist proposes to speak to you about science. Some time ago a well-known British scientist, a professor in a Scottish University, wrote a letter to the press in which he protested against the prominence still given to literary 1 philosophic and artistic interests, the subjects which we call the humanities. These, he said, belonged to the old dying capitalist regime; they were mere virtuosity and had no relation to the realities of the modern world. The one thing that mattered for forward-looking people was applied science. "The spark-gap", he concluded, "is mightier than the pen". Well, I am not quite sure what a "spark-gap" is, but I do not propose to imitate the professor's intolerance. I have no doubt that whatever the "spark-gap" may be it is extremely important. My own studies, except that I am an ardent field naturalist, have lain mostly in the despised humanist class. Now there is one humanist study of supreme value, it seems to me, and that is the business of government, the art of administration, the science of social organisation.

I am going to ask you to consider with me the part which applied science must play in that task which concerns us all so deeply. As members of a civilised society I want you to consider, as citizens, the importance of scientific research to the State, and, as young men and women, its romance and adventure for yourselves. As I have

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told you, I am no scientist so you must forgive if I fall into blunders in speaking of unfamiliar topics. In the words quoted Tennyson by a famous English judge when he first sat in the Court of Admiralty -

"Let there be no moaning of the Bar When I but out to sea."

Scientific research has been going on in some form or other since the world began; today it has not only reached a height undreamed of before, but it has become not a hobby or a luxury but an imperious necessity. We are the slaves of our own successes. A congested population in certain areas which has to be fed from overseas; the decline in infant mortality; the increase in the expectation of life; a higher standard of living; industries dependent upon foreign supplies of raw material - these and a hundred other factors compel us to keep the scientific apparatus we have devised at the highest pitch of efficiency and to be always extending and improving it.

Again, our life has become elaborately specialised. A man is no longer master of several crafts, but of one only, and that means an intricate system of co-operation which must be invulnerable, or the result is chaotic. Our civilisation is perpetually expanding and we must adapt ourselves to this expansion or perish.

What does this mean? That, just because our mechanism is so intricate it is far more exposed to disaster than the simpler mechanism of earlier ages. We can only preserve the standard which we have set ourselves by the constant exertion of human intelligence and ingenuity. It means that scientists must be always on the watch

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to discover newer better processes in production and distribution. It means that industry must be eager to make use of the results of scientific research and to adopt scientific methods. It means more. Research cannot be left only to the universities or to the private enterprise of great business corporations. It must be an activity of the State itself, a recognised function of government.

I think this duty is pretty well recognised today by the chief nations of the world. Let me take three examples. Russia, first of all. Perhaps Russia is not quite a fair example, for after a revolution a country has to be built on a new model from the bottom, and is therefore a fair field for scientific construction since there is very little traditional debris to hinder. Moreover, it is not very easy to be quite certain as to what is happening in Russia. But the facts, so far as we can judge, are impressive. Russia's annual expenditure on research seems to be about five hunored million dollars and her research budget is being annually increased. There are over eight hundred institutes engaged in the work and nearly fifty thousand scientific workers. Even if these figures require to be drastically scaled down it is clear that Russia recognises to the full the importance of applied science in national life.

I pass to Great Britain. There we have first of all the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research which covers a large proportion of British industries, and which is responsible for the National Physical Laboratory, the Fuel, Food and Building research institutions, the Biological survey, and other lesser matters. Its annual budget is about two and a half million dollars. Then there is

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the Medical Research Council and the Agricultural Research Council. These are all directly or indirectly controlled by the Government and work in collaboration with the research departments of private enterprises.

I come to Canada. If you go to Ottawa you will see an exceedingly handsome new building above the Ottawa river, not very far from Government House. That is the National Research Council which came of age two years ago. Its laboratories and its staff deal with practically every branch of applied scienc. It is organised in six main divisions - administration, research information, mechanical engineering, physics and electrical engineering, chemistry, biology, and agriculture. Like its British counterpart, it works in close collaboration with big industrial corporations who bring to it their problems and assist in working them out. Its staff is just over two hundred men and women, of whom eighty-nine are university graduates. The Council also assists in the different universities special lines of research of which it approves. It is well worth the while of any of you next time you go to Ottawa, to pay a visit to the National Research Council. You will find it a hive of fascinating activities, and you will learn more in an afternoon there about the real prospects of our country than you will from a year of speeches or newspaper articles.

A government activity has of course ultimately the taxes to fall back upon, and it is not considered as a profit-making business in the ordinary sense. But if the books of our research departments here and in Britain were kept in such a way as to show the real profit accruing from their work, there would be a very big

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credit balance. Let me give you a few examples of the immense pecuniary value to private industries, and to the country at large, of the work done by research departments.

First for Britain. Some time ago the Government undertook a certain piece of electrical research which cost altogether four hundred thousand dollars. It is now estimated that the saving to the electrical industry as a result of that research is five million dollars per annum. Again, a certain piece of research in the iron and steel industry has led to an annual saving of two million dollars in coke, and of seven and a half million dollars in finished steel. To take smaller items. The investigation into apple disease has led to an annual saving to British agriculture of one and a quarter million dollars; and some experiments in the preservation of meat have meant a saving of half a million dollars to the meat trade. The total cost of the apple and meat researches was only two hundred thousand dollars.

I turn to Canada and the work of the National Research Council. I am going to give you a few examples which I have got from the head of that Council, General Macnaughton. Take first, agriculture. Brilliant work has been done on grain research, and the discovery of rust-proof wheat; on potato research; on weed research; on certain field crop diseases; and on the storage and the transport of food. That work is continuing and it is not possible yet to estimate its results; but they are very great. Rust-resisting wheat, as you know, was supplied for the spring sowing last year in large quantities, and that meant a great saving to the farming industry, for there have been losses due to rust in one seas-