lO PRESIDENT S ADDRESS. 



the chemist as an employee, instead of treating him as a partner, 

 and by way of contrast he mentioned the Badische Anilin-Fabrik, 

 where, from the lowest workman up to the highest chemist, every 

 individual is by contract guaranteed a royalty, a definite share 

 in the money earned or saved by any suggestion or discovery 

 on the part of the individual. Britain. I need not say, approxi- 

 mates in this respect more to American than to German practice, 

 and to say what some of Britain's colonies do is quite superfluous. 

 Often we find that private manufacturing firms, who ought to 

 be employing whole-time chemists of their own, seek to make 

 amends for the lack by periodical interviews with Government 

 chemists. On the other hand, it is a significant comment on the 

 rate of remuneration in Government scientific departments that 

 one of the must important laboratories in this country should 

 have lost five members of its stafi:' within the last six months 

 because considerably better financial prospects were offered by 

 a private firm and by an adjacent administration — this at a time 

 when the Government was already achertising for three chemists 

 to fill other vacancies caused by the war. 



American scientific journals have reiterated that chemists 

 have become scientific hacks solely because they have not made 

 their voices heard. They are, 1 know, proverbially a ])atient 

 class, and have e\'er been so. As long as 200 years ago Pope 

 spoke of 



The starving chemist, in his golden views 



Supremely blest. 



But there are limits. 



Let me revert to the comparison between British and Ger- 

 man methods in regard to chemists. In a supplement to the 

 Manchester Guardian of June 30th, 1917, Prof. A. G. Green 

 attributes the decadence of the dyestuff industry in Britain, and 

 its prosperous career in Germany, to the fact that though in both 

 ■countries the managing firms were originally chemists, those in 

 England gradually passed into the hands of purely commercial 

 men. Some of you may recollect that, in my presidential address 

 given in this city three years ago to the South African Association 

 of Analytical Chemists, I referred to the British efforts to regain 

 the lost industry, and quoted the late Prof . Meldola as saying that 

 the supposition that this could be done by staring a company 

 whose directorate is to consist solely of business men is simply 

 ludicrous. What do we hear on the subject to-day? This: 



The Government meant well, the husiness men meant well, but after 

 three years the hard facts can no longer l)e denied. The protests of British 

 scientific opinion, ignored at the time, are in the event justified beyond 

 all measure. The fact is, it is not enough to mean well ; it is knowledge 

 that is wanting, not good will. 



That is the state of affairs in Britain : how far is South 

 Africa behind Britain? 



South Africa is a new country, and her future — she imagines 

 — lies all before her : shall we be right in adapting Mr. Thacker's 

 remark that, failing an adequate cultivation of science, she will 

 have no future at all? On the other hand, one does not wish 



