326 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



hope that with them will lie the sovereign panacea. But a 

 closer and calmer examination will show the manufactories to 

 be an effect, not a cause. The cause is scientific research, and 

 like the roots of the flower, it is hidden away from the sight of the 

 public. When research is allowed to die, industry fades with it. 

 Other countries are not so shortsighted as ours ; they are 

 keenly alive to this fact, and pour money out with a lavish 

 hand, knowing that in the end it will return to them increased 

 tenfold. The Engineering Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph 

 of April 26 shows up strongly the contrast between the subsidies 

 of the United States to the Bureau of Standards at Washington, 

 which amount to ,£100,000, and ours to the National Physical 

 Laboratory (a similar institution), which stop at the meagre sum 

 of £7,000. And in Nature of April 1 there is an excellent article 

 which, amongst other interesting matter, exposes the false 

 policy of Mr. Runciman in employing only low-salaried chemists 

 and the " lack of appreciation in this country of the services of 

 the chemist and the absolute ignorance on the part of the 

 Government of what remuneration should be given him." The 

 same article also contains words which every Briton should 

 take to heart : " Germany, on the other hand, has succeeded 

 because she has placed science on a sound business footing, 

 of which the fair remuneration of the scientific worker has been 

 a striking feature." This is all undeniably true, but if the 

 Government is representative of public opinion, does not the 

 fault lie equally with the ordinary commercial man? He is so 

 complacently satisfied with the British characteristic of the 

 bull-dog of " digging his teeth into something and for ever 

 hanging on." An excellent quality no doubt, but if he blindly 

 butts in and digs his teeth into the wrong thing, what then ? In 

 this case the commercial man is convinced that if he spends his 

 days in trying to grab business from a less wide-awake fellow 

 business man, and then spends his evenings smoking and 

 listening to the twaddle offered for his delight at a music-hall, 

 success is still bound to be his. He prides himself most on 

 being practical, and never gives a moment's thought as to what 

 constitutes real practicality. He is so niggardly with his 

 brains. If he took the trouble to survey business from a large 

 standpoint, and not only from the point of view of his own 

 small part in it, would he not find that nearly every commodity 

 which is put on the market is first thought out in the mind 



