598 



NATURE 



[January 27, 19 16 



the remarkable outburst of public opinion, it may 

 still be possible to get its incidence modified. Let 

 us consider what it means. 



Fortunately, so far as we understand, it does 

 not mean anything more than the closing- of the 

 g-alleries to the public. The ground alleged for 

 this is not greater safety (a matter already 

 attended to) ; it is in the main a question of 

 economy and the turning of some of the staff on 

 to more urgent work. But, as was well pointed 

 out in a letter to Saturday's Times signed by "A 

 Biological F.R.S.," the curatorial work must of 

 necessity go on, some office staff must be kept up, 

 and accredited students, many of whom are en- 

 gaged on actual war-work, will presumably be 

 admitted. The saving effected, whether con- 

 sidered absolutely or in relation to the total ex- 

 penditure of ordinary times, is therefore small; 

 the Government estimate is ;;^'5o,ooo. In the case 

 of the Natural History Museum, the largest of 

 those with which our readers are chiefly concerned, 

 it would seem possible to dispense with about 

 sixteen commissionaires, two lavatory attendants, 

 three or four cleaners, and perhaps as many 

 police. There are, we believe, a very tew em- 

 ployees still available for military service, and 

 awaiting their call. For the rest, the staff cannot, 

 consistently with the safety of the collections, be 

 much further depleted. The museum estimates 

 have already been enormously reduced, and any 

 additional saving would be quite trivial in propor- 

 tion. Not that the actual money will be saved, 

 for the Government could not cast its employees 

 adrift, but the labour can be directed to other pur- 

 poses. This does not mean that two dozen stal- 

 wart men are set free to fight their country's 

 battles, or even, for the most part, to make muni- 

 tions. Perhaps some of these candidates for pen- 

 sions are capable of light horticultural or clerical 

 work, in any case of work for which they have 

 not been trained. 



Now is this really worth while ? Here is a great 

 building, which with its vast exhibited collections 

 alone has been appraised at a million pounds, 

 about to be closed to the public for the sake of so 

 trivial a saving. Here is the centre of our Empire, 

 thronged with its citizens from near and far, and 

 they are to be precluded from seeing the gathered 

 scientific (and many of the artistic) treasures of 

 their nation. Here are our soldiers seeking re- 

 freshment for their minds deadened by the din of 

 battle, and they are to be turned' out to the public- 

 house, the revue girl, and Charlie Chaplin. On 

 grounds of pure economy we venture to predict 

 that as much money will be wasted to the nation 

 by this step as will ever be gained by it. Then 

 there are the children, whose school-hours in many 

 cases are shortened, whose teachers have obeyed 

 other calls — they will no longer be able to have 

 recourse to the museum which they are gradually 

 learning to love ; their pleasures must again be the 

 pleasures of mean streets. As for the public with 

 some leaning to nature or to art, those who spend 

 a hard-earned half-holiday in gaining some useful 

 knowledge, the public whom we have been trying 

 to lead to a better appreciation of science — what 

 NO. 2413, VOL. 96] 



will they think when they see that the first Govern- 

 ment establishments to be closed are those devoted 

 to the highest learning and the noblest forms of 

 art? And we, what are we to think of a respon- 

 sible Minister who can describe the museums as 

 merely "places of pleasant resort"? 



The truth is, the Government has been badgered 

 to "give the country a lead" In this matter of 

 economy ; and at last it has led — along the line of 

 least resistance. It is not because these are the 

 departments in which anyone has ever hinted at 

 waste ; those who never have enough to spend are 

 not likely to waste it. It is merely that the easy 

 but conspicuous action of closing the museums 

 may convince people that the Government "means 

 business." Sensible folk here will soon see that as 

 a business proposition there is nothing in it, and 

 across the Channel, where they are trying to re- 

 open such museums as had perforce to be closed, 

 it will certainly not count as un heau geste. 



NOTES. 



One of the effects of the war has been to bring 

 home more forcibly to the general public the part 

 played by science in the growth of Germany's great- 

 ness as a nation. Several articles have already ap- 

 peared in the reviews emphasising this, and the 

 January number of the English Review contains a 

 short sketch by Mr. H. L. Heathcote of the develop- 

 ment of Germany's chemical industry. This will help 

 to make better known the principles of action under- 

 lying Germany's success, in the past, in capturing so 

 large a share of the world's trade. The growth of the 

 industries of porcelain, glass, sugar, cyanide, and of 

 acids and alkalis, is briefly described, and a short 

 account is given of the inception of new industries, 

 such as those of the incandescent mantle, the metal 

 filament lamp, and the fixation of atmospheric 

 nitrogen. In a sketch of the development of the dye- 

 stuff industry, it is pointed out that no amount of 

 baseness in her conduct of war will ever quite eclipse, 

 from the chemists of all nationalities, the greatness of 

 Germany's achievements in organic chemistry, the 

 most difficult of all chemical work. "State-aided 

 chemical industry runs like a vein of gold through 

 the statecraft of Germany, and if ever we learn what 

 Kultur means we shall find that German chemical 

 industry is its vital part." That the industry can be 

 used in an almost unique way to assail the wealth of 

 other nations is proved beyond question by past facts. 

 It remains to be seen how far we, in the future, will 

 profit as a nation from the most important lesson the 

 war has to teach — that national greatness and even 

 national security depend primarily on the degree to 

 which science Is encouraged and fostered by the State. 



The threatened prohibition by Sweden of the ex- 

 portation of wood pulps awakens political interest In 

 an Important branch of our cellulose industries. The 

 papermaking Industry of Great Britain Is chiefly de- 

 pendent upon Imported raw materials, of which about 

 80 per cent, are the wood pulps. In evidence of the 

 growth of the Industry, as of its collateral dependence 

 upon exotic supplies, the Importation of these wood 

 pulp shows a tenfold increase for the period of 1887 to 



