August 15, 19 18] 



NATURE 



473 



number of interim reports dealing with special sub- 

 jects have been issued. These are incorporated in 

 the general report, which was presented to Sir Albert 

 Stanley in June, 19 17. It will be seen, therefore, that 

 the Committee completed its labours in about eleven 

 months, and that a year has elapsed between the 

 presentation and publication of its report. The latter 

 is divided into fourteen sections, in regard to which 

 limits of space permit reference to only two. It 

 should be stated, however, that, generally speaking, 

 the Committee failed to reach unanimity on most of 

 the points discussed. Nearly all the interim reports 

 are either signed with very decided reservations 

 by certain members, or else accompanied by a 

 minority report emphasising fundamental disagree- 

 ment. It is true that the general summary of recom- 

 mendations is signed by each member of the Com- 

 mittee, the numbers of which were reduced to nine by 

 the death of Mr. Colville in December, 19 16; but three 

 of these, in doing so, direct attention to various dis- 

 senting statements of theirs in the body of the report. 

 Sir Hugh Bell evidently came to very different con- 

 clusions from those reached by his brother employers, 

 and has expressed them in a series of minority reports. 

 As regards what may be called the future position 

 of labour in the industry, which is one of the most 

 fundamental aspects of the problem, the sectional 

 report is signed by five members, and more or less 

 dissented from on three separate grounds by the re- 

 maining four. . In the succeeding section, dealing with 

 " Protection," the same five members recommend that 

 the industry should be protected by the imposition 

 of customs duties " upon all imported iron and steel 

 and manufactures thereof," that a specific duty 

 should be levied in each class of commodity, and that 

 there should be maximum, general, and minimum 

 tariffs. Messrs. Gavin and Hodge, while agreeing 

 with this, consider it imperative that safeguards should 

 be provided by the Government against the raising 

 of prices unduly against the consumer and to the dis- 

 advantage of labour. On the other hand. Sir Hugh 

 Bell and Mr. Davidson in their dissenting statement 

 say: — "We entirely disagree with the foregoing 

 report, which proposes to inflict on the community 

 Protection in its most unmitigated form. Neither the 

 grounds on which this course is lecommended nor 

 the means which it is proposed to adopt to accom- 

 plish it are, in our judgment, justified by the facts 

 of the case. ... A country of which the exports of 

 iron and of the ultimate products of the manufac- 

 ture of iron amount to more than one-third of the 

 total value of the iron trade itself, and to something 

 like one-quarter of the total export trade of the 

 country, can by no stretch of language be described 

 as not being self-sufficing." It will .certainly not be 

 easy to legislate on the basis of this report. 



H. C. H. C. 



NEW X-RAY TUBES. 



THE war has brought about an activity in the 

 production of the " Crookes " or X-ray tube that 

 has become decidedly to our advantage. At the 

 commencement of hostilities a certain amount of 

 anxiety was felt as to how the great demand that was 

 immediately created could be met ; not only was the 

 manufacture of these tubes rapidly falling into Ger- 

 man hands, but we were also entirely dependent upon 

 that country ft»r the supply of the peculiar glass neces- 

 sary for their construction. Happily the difficulties 

 have now been overcome. The production of 

 tubes of higher efficiency and excellence than was 

 ever reached before the war has been achieved, and 

 f at the present time all the demands both for military 



K' NO. 2546, VOL. 1 01] 



and home needs can be met. This success is not 

 ! confined to British manufacturers, but is shared by 

 ' both our American and French Allies. 



The invention by Dr. Coolidge in America of the 



ionic discharge tube has placed in the hands of the 



radiologist a highly efficient tool that will produce a 



i volume of X-raij;s of any desired power of penetra- 



j tion. These tubes are supplied in EIngland by the 



British Thomson-Houston Co., of Upper Thames 



1 Street. 



I Messrs. Watson and Sons, of Great Portland Street, 



W., are the .sole agents for a very complete series 



i of tubes produced by M. Pilon in France. These 



i have been specially designed to meet military needs, 



I and are beautifully constructed pieces of apparatus ; 



' some thousands of them have been supplied to the 



Allied Armies. There are also many excellent tubes 



of home construction that are being produced in 



London as rapidly as the present restricted labour 



conditions will allow. Of these we may mention the 



I series known as the " Zenith " tubes, manufactured 



! by Messrs. A. E. Dean and Co., of Holborn. In 



i these tubes the new glass devised for the purpose by 



Sir Herbert Jackson is used, and they are London- 



, made throughout. 



Many other British-made tubes are on the market, 

 so that there is thus every hope that another important 

 industry has been saved from becoming a German 

 monopoly. 



THE POSITION OF UNIVERSITY AND 



HIGHER TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 



I. — Supply and Output of Students. 



TWO of the chief subjects dealt with in the repjort 

 of the Government Committee on the position 

 of natural science in the educational system of Great 

 Britain, of which a summary was given in Nature 

 of April 18, are (i) the need for concerted efforts to 

 increase the number of students at universities and 

 highei- technical institutions with the view of securing 

 a larger supply of trained scientific workers required 

 far industrial and other purposes, and (2) that in- 

 creased grants of public money are required to equip 

 the universities for their wxjrk in pure and applied 

 science, and to enable a substantial reduction of fees 

 to be made. Few particulars are given in the report 

 to show how the position of Great Britain as regards 

 university and higher technical educiition compares 

 with those of countries like Germany and the 

 United States, though the evidence which such a com- 

 parison affords strengthens greatly the case presented. 

 It may be worth while, therefore, to bring together 

 some facts which accentuate the need and urgency of 

 action in the directions indicated by Sir J. J. Thom- 

 son's Committee. 



The first report (1915-16) of the Advisory Council 

 for Scientific and Industrial Research pointed out that 

 the prime condition of success for its operations w-as a 

 largely increased supply of competent researchers. 

 " Before the war," the report remarks, " the output 

 of the universities -was altogether insufficient to meet 

 even a motlcrate expansion in the demand for research. 

 The annual number of students graduating with first- 

 or second-class honours in science and technology 

 (including mathematics) in the universities of England 

 and Wales before the war was only about 530, and of 

 these but a small proportion will have received any 

 serious training in research. We have frequently 

 found on inquiry that the number of workers of any 

 scientific standing on a given subject of industrial im- 

 portance is very limited. . . . 



"The responsibility for dealing with the grave situa- 

 tion which we anticipate' rests with the education 



