RESEARCH AND THE COAL-TAR DYE INDUSTRY 421 



Note on the Causes of German Supremacy in the Coal- 

 tar Dye Industry 



It would be difficult to assign within concise limits the 

 causes of German supremacy in the industry ; two main causes 

 must be taken into account : 



(1) The attention devoted to research work. 



(2) The manipulation of the Patent Laws for the benefit 



of the German firms. 



As regards the first reason, it is probably too well known to 

 need emphasising, but when it is remembered that the Hoechst 

 works employ 350 research chemists, the Badische Company 

 about the same number, and the Bayer Company nearly as 

 many — in all about 1,000 university-trained chemists, many 

 with the highest degrees — it will be realised that this great 

 number of highly trained, scientific brains constantly engaged 

 in discovering new dyes, evolving improved methods for making 

 old ones, and so on, has exerted and will continue to exert 

 a preponderating influence on the development of the German 

 industry, and the fact that the two German firms at Ludwigs- 

 haven and at Hoechst were ready to spend nearly a million 

 pounds sterling in pure research work connected with the 

 synthesis of indigo shows to what an extent the industry is 

 entrusted to the hands of research chemists ; and in the annual 

 balance sheet of every German chemical firm a large propor- 

 tion of the profits is set aside for research work as a matter 

 of course, in precisely the same way as other portions are 

 reserved for payment of interest, repayment of loans, and so on. 



Perhaps a clearer idea of the position of the chemist in 

 such a works may be gathered from the figures published by 

 the Hoechst works : 



It may be noted also that, taking the various branches of 

 industry as a whole, there is in Germany one university-trained 



