26 president's address. 



Some of us have read what H. G. Wells describes as ideal 

 in his " Modern Utopia " : 



In Utopia a great multitude of selected men, chosen volunteers, will 

 be collaborating on this new step in man's struggle with the elements. . . 

 . . Ever}- university in the world will be urgently working for priority 

 in this aspect of the problem or that. Reports of experiments, as full and 

 as prompt as the telegraphic reports of cricket in our more sportive 

 atmosphere, will go about the world. 



Clearly co-operation and co-ordination cannot become effec- 

 tive without efficient organisation. We were afforded a splendid 

 illustration of what may thus be eft'ected in the case of a private 

 corporation on the occasion of the Stellenbosch meeting, a year 

 ago, when we visited the dynamite factory at Somerset West. 

 and listened to the historical account given by the general 

 manager. Established at the beginning of the present century 

 for the purpose of supplying dynamite to the Kimberley Mines, 

 the sphere of operations had so extended that during the twelve 

 months immediately preceding our visit the works had exported 

 to the Commonwealth of Australia over £100,000 worth of explo- 

 sives manufactured in South Africa, in addition to supplying 

 our own needs. From that manufacture other industries 

 developed, one by one, and the works now include plant for the 

 manufacture of sulphuric, hydrochloric, and nitric acids, and of 

 copper sulphate and the nitrates of barium and lead, while others 

 are under consideration. Farmers have been supplied with the 

 sulphur which they need for sheep-dipping and vine-spraying, 

 while 20.000 gallons monthly of a lime-sulphur solution for sheep- 

 dipping have been turned out. The works bid fair to develop 

 into a general chemical factory after the war. Thus far the 

 private concern; what we need in the 'way of a Government 

 establishment is an institute for research in pure and applied 

 chemistry — such a National Chemical Laboratory as Prof. Hen- 

 derson has been longing to see established in England, but Eng- 

 land is not yet sufficiently responsive. " We don't conduct 

 research." says H. G. Wells. " we simply let it happen." Ah. 

 that is where England dift"ers from South Africa — we don't let 

 it happen : sometimes we make ourselves believe that we do, and 

 then we let other things happen to interfere with it. Why, I 

 have been pleading these twenty- four years in this agricultural 

 country for a properly organised system of chemical, physical, 

 biological research with respect to our agricultural soils, and it 

 has not come yet. 



The way in which a nation can organise itself and its re- 

 sources for war has impressed a world. Other nations are 

 talking about organising themselves for the commercial struggle 

 that will ensue upon the present strife, but mere talking about 

 reconstruction will not enable us to face the future serenely. 

 " We all talk about the weather," said Mark Twain, " but 

 nothing is done!" Why is it that England, France, Australia. 

 New Zealand, Canada, are mobilising their scientific men for 

 research? Dr. G. E. Hale. Chairman of the Department of 



