NA TURE 



749 



THURSDAY, FEBRUARY lo, 1921. 



Editorial and Publisking OffUts : 



MACMILLAN fe- CO.. LTD., 



ST. MARTIN'S STREET. LONDON, W.C.2. 



Advertisements and business letters should be 



addressed to the Publishers. 



Editorial communications to the Editor. 



Telegraphic Address: PHUSIS, LONDON. 

 Telephone Number: GERRARD 8830. 



The Promotion of our Optical Industries. 



THK Government has promised to introduce in 

 the House of Commons early next session 

 a Bill to safeguard and foster certain key indus- 

 tries in this country. Of these the optical glass 

 and optical instrument industries deserve special 

 ■consideration, for their importance is likely to be 

 overlooked because they are relatively small indus- 

 tries, not employing large aggregations of capital 

 or big numbers of firms and employees. It is 

 <dangerous for any nation to estimate the value 

 and necessity of a particular industry by taking 

 accDunt merely of the capital sunk in it and of 

 the number of people it employs. It is rather to 

 the character of the industry and to the part it 

 plays in the industrial life of the nation, both in 

 peace and in war, that we must look if wc are 

 rightly to measure its intrinsic national value. 



There arc differences of opinion as to the best 

 method of promoting the development of an in- 

 cipient industry, whether by .subsidies or by safe- 

 tfuards against unrestricted and unregulated 

 lorcign competition, but there is none as to the 

 need for immediate action in the case of industries 

 which arc essential to the proper funtrtioning of 

 the nation's industrial .system in peace and are 

 vital to its safety in war. .Adt-quate measures must 

 be taken to foster these key industries, regardless 

 of whether a general economic principle, sound in 

 ideal circumstances or as a general proposition, is 

 violated. 



It is not difficult to show that the manufactures 

 ■of optical glass and of optical instruments fall in 

 this category. First, it must be realised that the 

 NO. 2676, VOL. 106] 



manufacture of optical instruments in this country 

 stands or falls with the manufacture of optical 

 glass in this country. If the British optical instru- 

 ment industry is to be maintained and to develop 

 so as to turn out products equal, at least, to the 

 best products of other nations, it must not be 

 dependent on foreign sources for the supply of 

 optical glass, but must have an adequate home 

 supply, equal, again, at least to the best avail- 

 able anywhere. Owing mainly to our national 

 neglect of scientific workers, supremacy in the 

 optical glass industry, which was established in 

 this country as early as 1837, passed over to Ger- 

 many, the Government of which had the insight 

 and the foresight to gauge its actual and potential 

 value. Not only did the Prussian Government 

 bear the expense of the prolonged series of scien- 

 tific investigations commenced by Schott and 

 Abbe in 1881, but also, in order to capture the 

 world trade, large State subsidies were made con- 

 tinuously to the industry down to the declaration 

 of war in 1914. In that year there was but one 

 firm manufacturing optical glass in the British 

 Empire, with the consequence that during the first 

 year of the war our armies and our fleets could 

 not be equipped with the optical glass required. 



By the intensive research of our scientific 

 workers; by lavish expenditure; by the energetic 

 enterprise of manufacturers in building work-, 

 shops, installing plant, and, under conditions of 

 great difficulty, training labour to perform the 

 highly skilled operations needed, these deficiencies 

 were overcome ; and by the end of the war British 

 optical glass was as good as German, and it was 

 being produced in quantities sufficient to meet 

 every demand. The optical instrument industry 

 developed correspondingly, and instruments for 

 all the varied purposes of the Army, the Navy, 

 and the Air Force were manufactured equal to, 

 and in many cases surpassing, the best that 

 Germany could make. The position now is that 

 we have the buildings, the plant, the organisation, 

 the technical knowledge and the technicians, and 

 the skilled labour needed to maintain these indus- 

 tries at their present high level of efficiency. 

 Moreover, as a guarantee of future progress, the 

 industry has established the British Scientific In- 

 strument Research AsstKiation, and the Imperial 

 College of Science and Technology has formed a 

 Department of Technical Optics, so that the study 

 of this branch of science, hitherto neglected in 

 this Country, may be raised to the highest 

 university status. 



It is undeniable that the preservation of the 



CC 



