LXVIII THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



nation, and so on ad nauseam. It is depressing to-day to read, or to 

 remember, all the outpourings on this subject in the past of laissez- 

 faireists, and of doctrinaires with a constitutional inability to look 

 beyond the very immediate and often parochial question of the hour. 



All this is changed now in Great Britain. The war found the 

 nation unprepared and lacking in very many of the materials vitally 

 necessary not only for carrying it on, but for the continuation 

 of some of the important national industries. The revelation 

 gave a shock to the nation and dispelled, it is hoped, for- 

 ever, the beliefs and cherished illusions which made it indiffer- 

 ent to research as a factor in national progress and develop- 

 ment. The Imperial Government at once set about to organize a 

 movement for fostering research in pure and industrial science. The 

 Honorary Advisory Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, 

 appointed in 1915, was given a grant of £25,000, another of £40,000 

 in 1916, and this year it has been voted £1,038,000 which it will use 

 to further research during the next five years. 



Henceforth liberal assistance to research in Great Britain will 

 not be lacking, and, though it was grievously delayed, it has not 

 come too late to be of service. One cannot, however, but think 

 sadly of what might have been, if the leaders of the nation had earlier 

 taken occasion by the hand. Had they encouraged the sciences as 

 its interests required, its industries would have attained such a 

 position of superiority that those of Germany could not have de- 

 veloped to any degree that would have made them competitors, 

 and, accordingly, Germany could not have become through them 

 wealthy enough to enable her to finance a war such as she is now carry- 

 ing on. To assist her scientific development during the past thirty 

 years Great Britain should have given annually nearly half a million 

 pounds, or, about fifteeen millions in all, a^ very great sum indeed 

 but a bagatelle to the £5,000,000,000 of debt which this war is imposing 

 on the nation, to say nothing of the ghastly legacies it is now leaving. 

 It was, indeed, a German dramatic poet, but of a former and saner 

 generation, who makes one of his characters exclaim that "The gods 

 themselves are helpless in the face of man's stupidity!" 



It was not only in Great Britain that the old point of view pre- 

 vailed. In all other parts of the Empire the laissez-faire doctrine 

 was inculcated, and, in consequence, an apathy regarding research in 

 pure science and its application to industry, like that which charater- 

 i^ed Great Britain in the forty years before 1914, paralyzed all at- 

 tempts to make the universities develop on new lines. In Canada 

 this was particularly the case. I have heard it again and again 

 maintained that our universities should follow the lead of Oxford 



