Abstract
IN an inaugural address to the South Wales Institute of Engineers at Cardiff on January 20, on "Industrial Planning and Research: Catchwords or Realities?", Dr. F. J. North emphasized that our plans for the expansion of industry and for the betterment of social conditions will be useless unless the availability of the means for giving effect to them has been assured. What is technically possible is not necessarily economically profitable; the success of a venture depends on a market as well as upon raw materials, and the value of one industry is related to its effect upon others. The single-track approach to many of our problems, Dr. North said, is largely due to the gap which exists between scientific knowledge and popular comprehension of it, a gap which will only be permanently bridged when a new attitude towards science is adopted by those responsible for the educational system of Great Britain. Discussing particular proposals such as coal and its hydrogenation, the Severn Barrage scheme and the like as contributions to Welsh reconstruction, he pointed out that such questions cannot be considered solely in terms of regional standards or local expediency. The first step in giving effect to plans for social betterment in all its aspects is to make the nation realize the extent to which its welfare depends upon coal, upon those who make it available for use, and upon those who attempt to discover how best to use it.
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Research Programme for South Wales. Nature 154, 59–60 (1944). https://doi.org/10.1038/154059a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/154059a0