Abstract:
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS given by H. J. Lee * THE COMMON GROUND Our three previous Presidents in their addresses have dealt admirably, in differing manner, with the statistics, economics, and potential of animal production; with the changes in geographical distribution and relative national importance of the animal industries and the problems that face them during feast and famine; and with research objectives which aim to cope with these problems. Some of these are fields in which I could contribute little and into which, in any case, I would be too diffident to venture. Past Presidents have touched, also, on the unique range of membership of our Society, its history and its structure. Despite this prior treatment, it is on some aspects of our Society that I have chosen to concentrate today. I do this principally because, during my term of office, I have been so intimately concerned with its purpose and function that I find it difficult to think or speak of anything else! Another reason that I feel justifies my choice is that my audience is constituted rather differently from the audiences which faced my predecessors. THE ORIGINS OF OUR SOCIETY Dr. Franklin, in his address, revealed the complete background to the formation of our Society; 1 shall refer only to the points cogent to my theme. Our Society was born as the direct result of the decision of three peopleProfessor McMahon, Mr. Hayman, and our President elect Miss Newton Turner -to convene a meeting in Sydney on December 14, 1950, of a group of scientists working in New South Wales who were considered likely to be interested in forming an Australian Society of Animal Production-with the primary objective of providing a common meeting-ground for the growing body of research workers in the field of animal production. The meeting was held and, after considerable discussion, it was decided that such a Society should be formed and, further, that it should exist independently of other associations. Had our independence not been stressed at the outset, we might well exist as an adjunct (for good or ill) to a body such as the important and all-embracing Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science. It was argued that the Society should comprise two categories-full members and associate members-but the meeting decided that there should be but one grade of membership; the only proviso being that student members should receive special consideration such as a lesser subscription. The meeting appointed a steering committee to enlist interest in the proposal in States other than New South Wales, and to draw up a constitution. Progress was relatively slow, and it was not until January 1954 that the Society was actually formed at an inaugural meeting in Canberra -with our newly elected Fellow, Dr. Franklin, as its first President. The Constitution that was adoPted clearlv stated the DrinciDal aim of the infant Society (already quoted by Mi. Wishart,' our second eresid' ent) to be 'To promote the advancement and further the interests of Animal Production in Australia'. This was to be done by fostering an interchange of ideas in Australia * Division of Biochemistry and General Nutrition, C.S.I.R.O., Adelaide. 8 and overseas in this broad field, and by holding periodical meetings at which prepared papers should be presented for discussion and criticism-the papers subsequently to be published. Membership (it was written) would be open to all persons 'who shall be or shall have been engaged upon some research, technical or commercial aspect of Animal Production'. These admirable precepts have given rise at the present time to an independent Society of about 900 members, representing an astonishing diversity of interests- some of them narrow, some of them broad. THE IMPLICATIONS OF DIVERSE MEMBERSHIP The membership is drawn from the student body, from commerce, practical production, laboratory research, field research, extension, journalism, and so on, and is distributed throughout Australia, attached to one or the other of the existing five Branches. Probably the only common interest shared by all members is in the welfare of animal production. It has not always been agreed that this widely diversified membership is in the best interest of the Society or that it offers the greatest opportunity for the advancement of animal production. In fact, it has been suggested that membership might be restricted; but I believe that this diversity is at once the strength of our Society and the challenge to its continued existence. Most members belong to specialist groups where their work, their views and their proposals are subject to the informed criticism of their peers; these groups separately cater for individual interests such as biochemistry, nutritional physiology, agriculture, veterinary practice, stud stock, genetics, stockowners' affairs, and journalism, to name some of them. Our Society set out to become, and must remain, the common ground on which members may meet in order to come to appreciate- not necessarily to agree with or even to understand completely, but certainly to appreciate- the point of view of others concerned with the same ultimate objectives. The appreciation of one category of members for another must be fostered if animal production is to benefit to the greatest degree by our combined efforts, for tolerance and appreciation have not been and are not easily achieved. Probably many of us have encountered, on the one hand, the smug condescention of a few scientists towards the practical producer, with his fund of common sense, business sense, and practical experience (but no diploma), and, on the other hand, the equally irritating disparagement of sound scientific advice because the scientist lacked experience in animal practice. These are perhaps the extremes, but within the ranks of the scientists themselves a similar lack of appreciation tends to exist. The cellular physiologist and the field experimentalist do not always consider each other equally worthy scientists. I have heard an agricultural scientist who had solved an animal husbandry problem of considerable local importance, mention apologetically the fact that his work contributed nothing of fundamental significance! I am sure the farmers who benefited didn' mind, but the scientist was tacitly t acknowledging a tendency to consider certain types of scientific endeavour inherently superior to others. There is, in some minds, a major distinction drawn between science concerned with immediate application and science dealing with basic principles-a distinction which is, in the main, artificial. The only real distinction should surely be between correctly and incorrectly implemented scientific research, for any scientific endeavour which extends the frontiers of knowledge, which soundly establishes new facts, is valid science. Whether the endeavour relates to the intricacies of a system of enzymes or a problem of grazing management is of minor importance in this regard. I could pursue this theme, but I prefer to quote from a recent review of a collection of essays dealing with basic science in relation to disease, for the writer'% has summed up the situation far better than I could do: 'These essays prompt the * Sir George Pickering, F.R.S. --Nature (London) Vol. 191: p. 530, August 1961. 9 question: What is meant by basic or fundamental research? Listening to applicants for research grants. I would have verv little doubt that the two adiectives have substantial snob, prestige or prig value, as you care to look at it. All scientific workers wish to claim that what they do is basic or fundamental. The terms have also been applied to laboratory work as opposed to work outside it. 'Another usage equates basic science with pure science; the rest is applied. 'I have to confess that the intention to divide the pursuit of knowledge into fundamental and applied, into useless and useful, into respectable and unrespectable, has always been, and is utterly repugnant to me. 'Knowledge is a unity, and an experiment devised and carried out in the laboratory is not necessarily more interesting or more illuminating than one designed, as it were, by the hand of God. . . . But the present tendency to laud the laboiatorv and decrv -field work of whatever kind is not in the best interests of scientific knowledge as a whole. As Roger Bacon wrote, ` sciences are connected; All they lend each other material aid as parts of one great whole . . . As an eye torn out or a foot cut off, as it is with the different departments of knowledge; none can attain its proper result separately, since all are part of one and the same complete wisdom'' . The dependence of one field of endeavour upon another is abundantly clear in the pursuit of animal production. As the practical producer reveals the existence of problems to the scientist, so may the trained observer propose a logical approach which had not occurred to the producer; the problem encountered by the field experimentalist may stimulate the laboratory worker to the closer examination of basic principles, the clarification of which in turn provides the extension worker with the guidance he requires. This chain of collaboration may best be sustained and developed if each of us continues to devote himself wholeheartedly to his particular speciality without losing sight of the common goal. In the more populous regions of eastern and southern Australia a close association between producers and scientists is so readily possible that most of us fail to be impressed by the advantages that accrue. In contrast, the difficulties encountered by research workers in agriculture and animal husbandry in areas in northern Australia are appalling. Mr. Alan Stewart (Chief of the C.S.I.R.O. Division of Land Research and Regional Survey) has picturesquely described his officers in the Northern Territory and the remote parts of Western Australia, in particular, as working in a vacuum-for in those regions there exists no established agriculture nor intensive animal production to provide guidance, criticism, or experience. A vital link is missing. More fortunately located, as we are, it is surely our duty to determine that every advantage is taken of our situation;. and I am convinced-that the Australian Societv of Animal Production is and will continue to be an increasinglv powerful factor' in achieving this end. The weak links that do exist in the chain of collaboration are -undoubtedly being bridged in our educational centres and elsewhere, and our Society provides the forum. FUNCTIONAL ASPECTS Our Society is young and suffers from the brashness and inexperience of youth. Consequently, it has few precedents to guide it but, conversely, it has few traditions sufficiently established to discourage innovation. One inherent weakness to which attention must at some time be devoted is the lack of continuity in. the functioning of the Council which directs the affairs of our Society. At each Biennial General Meeting, an entirely new Council is electedentirely new except for the retiring President who, to my knowledge, has never been able to attend a subsequent Council Meeting- and this new Council must overcome its inexperience while endeavouring to develop and to administer. Although each Council is likely to succeed increasingly in advising its successors, I feel that it 10 will ultimately prove an advantage if it can be arranged that all members of Council do not retire simultaneously, or perhaps that a selection of retiring officebearers may attend an early meeting of the new Council. The advantages of one or other of these schemes could be developed at length, but this is not the occasion. At present, because of the entirely fresh outlook brought to bear by each new Council, marked changes in procedure are to be expected. It has been suggested that many members can ill afford four or five days to attend a Conference such as the present one; and that a better procedure would be to conduct a series of concurrent sessions which would enable each member to attend those closest to his own specialty and then go about his business after, perhaps, two days. Although pressure of numbers might eventually urge this upon us, I personally would deplore such a move at our present stage of development, for it would undoubtedly divide the Society into several sections and thereby stifle the chances of mutual understanding between the strange and different points of view of the various disciplines and callings at present intermingled. Now, the agricultural economist and the animal physiologist-poles apart in outlook-can meet on common ground. When they can no longer do so, our Society would appear to me to deny the principal reason for its existence. However, the precise nature of our Conferences, of our outlook, and of the emphasis of our activities is bound to vary from time to time by force of circumstances. I think it can be assumed that scientific members will continue to regard our independent Society as a suitable body in which to seek the approbation and salutary criticism of their fellow scientists, as they are accustomed to do; but our continued success invites the more active participation in our Conferences and general affairs of our producer members. The preparation of a considered statement on a topic related to animal production, suitable for presentation, is accepted by the practising scientist as a necessary, if irksome, consequence of his calling; but, to a producer, it is an unaccustomed task which he is seldom likely to undertake voluntarily. Nevertheless, our Society needs the producer, whatever the form of his contribution-one valuable example of which lies in the display to be provided by studmasters for our Conference excursion. CONCLUSION Ours is not just another Society, with just another Conference. It is a live association of a multiplicity of interests making a conscious endeavour to encourage mutual appreciation for the eventual benefit of animal production. Professor Ewer (our third President) perhaps summed up what I have attempted to convey when he said'I believe we have a duty as members of this Society and colleagues of farmers and graziers of trying to see things ` the round'' in . This is frequently beyond us, but I do most earnestly believe that our Society provides the meeting place where we may strive to achieve this wider view. The conclusions which I have attempted to place before you may have been obvious to you, but they were not to me, and I have arrived at them after considerable thought during my term of office and earlier. Should these conclusions have served to clarify for vou, as they have for me, the purpose and future of ` our Society, and if they have convinced you, as they have me, that the future is worthy of our combined effort and devoted service, then-my purpose has been . served. 11