H.—34a

The issue of the Standard Code of Illumination Values should do much towards securing the use of adequate and proper lighting for different needs according to the demands upon eyesight, and so enable respective tasks to be carried out with greater ease, speed, and safety, while avoiding eyestrain that consequently leads to defective vision with all its attendant disabilities. General Progress op Work. It has not been possible to meet all the requests that have been made throughout the year for the development, of standards. The representations that have been made in this regard, and which have not been met, are, however, under consideration with a view to determining their relative claims and urgency with the object of satisfying all legitimate requirements. In the meantime, as evidenced by the foregoing review, the work has been proceeded with during the year in a way that registered satisfactory progress. There have been clear indications also of a growing appreciation of the importance of standards as an aid to industrial development and as a basis for more orderly and effective commercial activities and relationships generally. Commercial and trade organizations, administrative institutions, individual traders, and other responsible sections of the community have displayed an increased recognition of the value of the principle of standardization, and this reveals a growing standards consciousness that can be regarded as a healthy social trend that will prove to be to the ultimate advantage of the Dominion proportionate to its growth. Visit op Mr. Percy Good, Deputy Director op the British Standards Institution. During the year interest in standards activity received a valuable stimulus from the visit of Mr. Percy Good, Deputy Director of the British Standards Institution, who, at the invitation of the Governments of Australia and New Zealand, visited these two countries to confer in regard to the standardization activity being carried out on a basis of reciprocity with the United Kingdom and other Empire countries. After spending some six weeks in Australia, Mr. Good arrived at Auckland on 17th October, 1938, where he was welcomed by representatives of trade organizations and the Auckland branch of the Institution of Engineers. Reaching Wellington the following day, he commenced to acquaint himself with the standards activity that was being carried on in the Dominion. Subsequently, he met representatives of manufacturers' associations, chambers of commerce, United Kingdom Manufacturers, and New Zealand Representatives' Association (Incorporated), New Zealand Importers' Association, New Zealand Institution of Engineers, and officers attached to local authorities and Government Departments in Christchurch, Dunedin, Wellington, and Auckland. In addition to giving eight addresses and two radio talks from 2YA, the visitor conducted some twenty-five interviews during his visit. In the course of these addresses Mr. Good expressed himself as agreeably surprised and satisfied with the effectiveness of the work in the Dominion, and the striking progress that had been made under the direction of the Advisory Council since the reconstitution of the organization within the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. He also expressed the opinion that, although the administration of standards in the Dominion was a Government activity, he was satisfied it was working along lines identical with those adopted in the United Kingdom and the countries where standards operated independently, though in close partnership with. Government Departments and local-government authorities. Mr. Good said it was agreed that the standards organization could not be effectively maintained in a country with such limited industrial units as New Zealand unless the Government undertook the fuller responsibility in the way that, had been done. In the presentation of his case Mr. Good used interesting examples to show the duplication of effort and elimination of waste, on a vast scale, and the more effective utilization of our energies and resources that resulted from the sound development and administration of standards. He stressed that his mission was concerned with a principle which penetrated every phase of human endeavour and activity, and quoted interesting instances of standard equipment which greatly minimized accident incidence and gave protection to health, thus greatly reducing the associated costs in addition to avoiding the distress that results from avoidable accidents and unnecessary injury to health. For this reason, many authorities cited such specifications in their regulations. As this practice made it possible to concentrate on manufacture to a common specification for the same equipment used by different authorities, instead of manufacturing to individual specifications, which greatly increased original costs and maintenance charges, he hoped the same principle would be generally adopted in New Zealand in accordance with the recommendations of the 1932 Imperial Conference held at Ottawa. ... ... In this connection Mr. Good pointed out that it was significant that the approving authority for local-body loans in the United Kingdom required that all material purchased with such loan-moneys should, as far as possible, conform to British standard specifications, in order to ensure the most economic expenditure of public money. The success of the work and the measure of its benefits to all concerned was dependent upon the measure of co-operation and active participation of all responsible commercial, industrial, and administrative organizations, which, he freely acknowledged, was already forthcoming to a promising extent. During his presence in Wellington Mr. Good addressed a combined meeting of over one hundred members of the committees of the New Zealand Standards Institute on the general subject of standards procedure and administration. He also met, several individual committees, and conferred with members of the Council on several occasions.

3—H. 34a.

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