128 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



are richer in iron than those on the German side of the frontier. In 1870 

 Germany's contribution to the world's output of steel was o'2 million tons, and that 

 of the United Kingdom 0*3 million tons ; in 1910 it was 13' 5 millions, while ours 

 had increased to less than half that amount. As Prof. Carpenter has pointed out, 

 Germany could never have built up her immense industry in iron and steel, and 

 the present war would have been impossible, had not two Englishmen, Sidney 

 Thomas and Percy Gilchrist, invented in 1878 the basic- Bessemer process by 

 which the phosphoric iron ores, which had previously been considered to be 

 worthless, were rendered available for steel production, while incidentally the 

 basic lining of the converter, when ground into fine powder after use, forms 

 the valuable agricultural fertiliser known as basic slag. The statues of Thomas 

 and Gilchrist erected in Diisseldorf show that German steel manufacturers 

 recognise the debt they owe to these two men. 



As with the basic process, the combination of scientific knowledge with 

 practical purpose has resulted in many other developments of modern metallurgy. 

 Rare elements which were formerly scarcely known by name outside chemical 

 laboratories are now used as essential constitutents of alloys of the highest 

 industrial value. Ten years' research by Sir Robert Hadfield upon the influence 

 which different percentages of manganese exert upon the properties of steel led 

 to the discovery of that remarkable metal, manganese steel, which has shown the 

 way to the production of dozens of other alloys possessing qualities required by 

 the arts of peace as well as the arts of war. To elements quite unknown a few 

 years ago, or regarded merely as chemical and mineral curiosities, we owe not 

 only the new steel alloys which now play so large a part in ordnance, naval 

 construction, and engineering, but also the incandescent gas mantle, the metal 

 filament electric lamp, and many other industrial products. 



The raw materials of every industry are given additional values by the 

 processes of manufacture to which they are submitted. If the cost of the material 

 used is deducted from the selling value of the article at the factory, we get what 

 is known as the net output, which represents the value added by industry. By 

 dividing this net output by the number of workers engaged in producing it, the 

 net output per head is obtained. Now, according to the Census of Production, 

 1907, the average net output per worker in the industries of the United Kingdom 

 was ,£102 per annum. This sum includes all establishment charges and interest 

 on capital as well as the wages of the worker, so that probably the average wage 

 should not be taken as more than about £1 a week. 



The problem is how to increase this amount and the net output of the worker 

 of which it is a part. It would be no advantage to increase the value of the 

 net output by raising the selling price of the goods in the home markets, and 

 international competition prevents this being done in other markets. Two other 

 courses are possible — namely, (1) the individual worker works harder or longer, or 

 (2) he is enabled to produce more by means of machinery. A table given in the 

 Census of Production, and reproduced in the recent Report on Electric Power 

 Supply in Great Britain, shows conclusively that in practically all trades the 

 average net output per worker increases with the increase of horse-power of 

 engines in factories per hundred persons employed. In other words, the average 

 wage goes up with the use made of machinery. Individual workers may be 

 thrown out of employment by the introduction of new machines, and if a very 

 large number of men throughout the country remained unemployed because of 

 the use of machinery, it would obviously not be a cause of much national satis- 

 faction to know that the net output per head of the industries using the machinery 



