22 president's address — section b. 



Inspector at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, advertised for a number 

 of " Temporary Assistant Chemists " for his Department in the fol- 

 lowing terms : — "Applicants must have had a thorough training in 

 Inorganic and Organic Chemistry, and must be accurate Analysts. 

 University Graduates or Members of the Institute of . Chemistry 

 will have preference. Wages, £2 Os. 6d. per week." At the close of 

 the same year the British House of Commons Recruiting Commit- 

 tee, in attempting to classify vocations according to utility for 

 munition and other work at home, issued the statement that the 

 classes of workers which could most readily be spared for service in 

 the Army were " navvies, tuinwllcrs and chemists." On which the 

 late Sir William Ramsay commented in a letter to the Press that, 

 although this estimate of the value of chemists was doubtless due to 

 ignorance, the men responsible for it had thereby shown them- 

 selves unfit to be trusted with the destinies of the Empire. But 

 in this connexion Australian officialdom was not to bei Oiutdone, 

 for about the same time the Victorian Department of Mines ad- 

 vertised for a chemist with a B.Sc. degree and a sound knowledge 

 of chemical analysis to take part in research work on the distilla- 

 tion of brown coal and similar important problems, at the princely 

 salary of £72 per annum. Perhaps it was en the strength of 

 this that the then Victorian Minister for Mines, in the course of a 

 lecture whic'h he gave a little later before the Royal So'ciety of 

 Arts in London, claimed for his Departmeiit great credit for its 

 zeal in stimulating chemical research ! 



■ Official indiffereince to science in general, and chemistry in par- 

 ticular, has cost us dearly both in blood and treasure. We know 

 for instance that- early in 1915 Germany was running short, not 

 only of propellant explosives, but alsoi of the raw materials — cotton 

 and glycerine^ — for making them. Yet, in sjDite of the repeated 

 warnings of Sir William Ramsay and other eminent cheanists, 

 our blockade was so negligently enforced that for the first fifteeu 

 months of the war the importation into enemy countries of cotton 

 and ol fats and oils was allowed to go on. almost unchecked. As 

 an example of the kind of ignorant obstruction which chemists 

 had to face, it will suffice to mention that a. well-known technical 

 chemist of niy acquaintance, in the course of an interview on this 

 inatter with a high official of the War Office, was met by the 

 reply that if we stopped the importation of cotton wool into 

 Germany the Germans would simply make their explosives from 

 sheep's wool instead, so that there was really nothing to justify 

 the risk which we should run of offending the United States. 

 However, at last things began to move, for a little later we find 

 the present Lord Chancellor, then Sir F. E. Smith, stating in 

 the course of an argument in a. contraband case before the Prize 

 Court, that it had " just been discovered that glycerine could be 

 made from lard." Although he was thus unconsciously celebrating 



