Advocate (Burnie, Tas. : 1890 - 1954), Friday 24 October 1952, page 3


AUSTRALIA HAS BECOME THE BRIDGEHEAD

BETWEEN EAST AND WEST

CANBERRA.-Australia had become the bridgehead between East and West, and it was vital she should understand the problems of the East in order to be able to be able to alleviate them and interpret them to the rest of thc world, Lord Bruce of Melbourne said yesterday in his. first address as Chancellor of thc Australian National

University

He hoped scholars from the universities of India, Pakistan, Ceylon and other countries of Asia and the East would become familiar sights on the campus of thc Aus-tralian National Univers-ity.

Decisions concerning the moral and ethical factors of how the discoveries of science should be used should not be for tlie scientist to deter-mine. They were troubled with well-founded doubts ns

to whether, in the light of ' political and social develop-ments, the traditional attit-ude of giving the widest dis-semination to new knowledge should be modified, he said.

The academic man. with his greater knowledge, had a special obligation to use his influence to ensure wise and tolerant decisions on so basic

a problem and it was the duty of the community carefully to weigh his advice.

He made these comments as qualification of a declarat-ion of policy of the new uni-versity, in which he said: "We are determined to be in-dependent and free from trammel in our enterprise. We shall pursue knowledge thoroughly and use it res-ponsibly".

Lord Bruce said the knowledge gathered about thc Pacific half of the world by thc Research School of Pacific Studiesmight touch more close-ly than we knew the des-tinies of us all.

For peace, and if the world was to be saved from the soc-ial economic and financial chaos which threatened it, the problems resulting from over-population and backward and industrial techniques in I the Pacific must bc solved.

! "I say without hesitation

that the greatest need is for trained men and women and that the shortage is alarm-ing. Let us in Australia com-bine to alleviate this short-age'', he said.

The National University

would provide facilities for

higlicr learning and play it« pal in sending scientists and others to Asian countries to advise on the spot on the technical problems they had

to overcome.