328 



NATURF. 



[October 14, 1920 



formed." There is much sanity in the reply oif the 

 Advisory Council to the criticism, actual or hypothetical, 

 that much greater scientific results of value to industry 

 would have been produced if the i,ooo,o<x)/. had been 

 spent directly upon research done at the National 

 Physical Laboratory and other research laboratories 

 up and down the country. " Had the million been 

 spent on research directed by the Government itself, 

 its effect upon manufacturers would at the best have 

 been destructive of their self-reliance, and at the worst 

 a free gift to their competitors in other lands." We 

 agree. Critics of this side of the Department's activi- 

 ties do not seem to recognise that to throw responsi- 

 bility for research on the industries themselves is the 

 surest way to educate the industries to appreciate the 

 difficulty and the value of research. 



\ word may well be said here as to the statement 

 in the report that at the end of the five years' period 

 the research associations "must be prepared to con- 

 tinue without subvention from the State." The 

 general principle is undoubtedly sound, and in the 

 case of industries with large aggregations of capital 

 there need be little fear that, having set their hands 

 to the plough, they will turn back when the support 

 •of the State fails. F"or them the five years is probably 

 a sufficient period. But there are industries, relatively 

 small when measured either by the capital available 

 ■or even by their production, which are, nevertheless, 

 of vital importance to the State — "key" industries 

 from their character rather than from their size. 

 For these it may be necessary that State aid should 

 "be prolonged for more than the five years' period if, 

 for thom, the benefits of this research movement are 

 :to be consolidated and extended. 



On the question of the conduct and co-ordination 

 of national research the report truly observes that if 

 the scheme for co-operative research in the several 

 industries is to be a permanent success, provision 

 jnust also be made for dealing with certain funda- 



mental problems which are of such wide application I 

 that no .single industry, however intelligent or highly | 

 organised, could hope to grapple with them effectively. 

 The first of these basic problems is fuel. The Fuel 

 Research Board was appointed in 1917 under the 

 directorship of Sir George Beilby. .\ brief account of 

 the activities of this Board is given. It includes such 

 questions as " Gas Standards and the Development of 

 the Gas Industry," "Peat as a Source of Fuel," 

 "Pulverised Fuel," and problems of the production 

 and utilisation of alcohol for power and traction pur- 

 fxjses. Other instances of these " national researches " 

 briefly reviewed in the report are the conservation of 

 coal and mineral resources, the preservation of food, 

 and the research into building materials and con- 

 struction. 



In the section dealing with the aiding of suitable 

 researches undertaken by scientific and professional 

 societies and organisations it is stated that grants 

 have been made for the work on hard porcelain at 

 the Stoke-on-Trent Central School of Science and 

 Technology, that on glass technologv at Sheffield 

 University, and that on technical optics at the Imperial 

 College of Science and Technology. 



In concluding its short summary of the first five 

 years' work the Advisory Council well says : " .■V longer 

 f)eriod for review is specially necessary in our case, 

 for research cannot be expected to produce results at 

 short and regular intervals. Indeed, the expectation 

 that it will is a misconception which has stood largely 

 in the way of its consistent use by manufacturers, 

 and has strained the patience of a public apt to think 

 that the placing of an .Vet upon the Statute Book and 

 the creation of a new organisation are all that is 

 necessary to reach a desired end. If art is long in 

 comparison with life, science, in spite of all its bril- 

 liant achievements, is longer still." That truth needs 

 to be ever in the minds of those who deal with 

 research. 



The University of Birmingliam. 



ON Friday last, October 8, a number of influential 

 representatives of Birmingham and the Midlands 

 were the guests of the University of Birmingham at 

 a luncheon in the Great Hall of the University- at 

 Edgbaston. The Chancellor (Lord Robert Cecil) 

 presided, and the object of the gathering was to make 

 known the need for increased financial assistance for 

 the University. 



Funds are urgently needed " to extinguish the debt 

 of the University (130,000?.); to pay the staff of the 

 University a living wage ; to provide the necessary 

 new accommodation and staff for the existing depart- 

 ments of science, arts, medicine, commerce, and 

 education ; to provide in all faculties facilities for 

 research urgently needed in the public interest; to 

 meet the greatly increased cost of administration and 

 upkeep ; and to enable the University to maintain its 

 position among modern universities." 



The Chancellor in calling upon Mr. .Austen Cham- 

 berlain to speak welcomed him as one of the Members 

 of Parliament for Birmingham, as Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer, and more than all as the son of his 

 father. Mr. Chamberlain, speaking first as a citizen 

 of Birmingham, outlined the history of the civic 

 expansion of the city in the days of his father, when 

 the strenuous efforts of the leading men succeeded in 

 making Birmingham a worthy metropolis of the Mid- 

 lands, their work culminating in the foundation of the 

 University. Speaking for the Government, he gave ex- 

 pression to the surprise with which they had learned the 



NO. 2659, VOL. 106] 



extent to which the country had been dependent upon 

 university learning for success in the Great War. Now 

 he " would say to an audience drawn from a great 

 business community centring in Birmingham that if 

 such .services can be rendered by university learning 

 in war-time, is it not certain that those services are 

 equally necessary to our prosperity as a nation, and 

 the prosperity of this ^ity and district, amidst the 

 difiiculties and developments which have followed on 

 the restoration of peace? L'pon the recognition as 

 a great community of the national and civic import- 

 ance of such an institution as the University depends 

 the ability to hold our place among the cities of the 

 kingdom and the Empire." 



The Government was fullv aware of the immense 

 importance of universities, and readv to back its 

 opinion of that importance. It had spent for many 

 years immense sums on elementary education ; it had 

 spent considerable sums on secondary education ; but 

 all too little on university education. Mr. Chamber- 

 lain had undertaken, unless he was prevented by over- 

 whelming financial reasons, to submit to Parliament 

 for next year a grant of 1,500,000/., and he had under- 

 taken to consider — and though he could not promise, 

 he hoped he might be able to do something in that 

 direction — a further special non-recurrent grant in 

 order to adapt the federated universities' scheme of 

 pensions to the case of the older men who had joined 

 and served the universities long before that scherne 

 was in existence, and therefore on retirement would, 



