5o6 



NATURE 



[August 29, 19 18 



relain $ome part of the trade, to enter into agreements 

 with their German competitors, and existed in some 

 cases only on sufferance." 



There must be "sbmething rotten in the State " 

 that brings a proud and powerful nation to such 

 a pass as this. The Committee, in its "General 

 Conclusions," points out how we have allowed 

 certain branches of production of g-reat import- 

 ance as a basis for other manufactures to come 

 entirely of very largely under German control, and 

 it enumerates many examples which have been 

 made painfully familiar to us since 1914. " In all 

 these cases the strength of the German position 

 was due largely to persistent scientific work and 

 organising skill." It might have been added that 

 this "persistent scientific work and organising 

 skill" was directed by a "commercial and indus- 

 trial policy" deliberately designed to strike at 

 the welfare and even at the very existence of this 

 Empire. 



Much of all this has been said many times 

 already, but if the country is to be thoroughly 

 aroused to a sense of the jeopardy in which it 

 stands now that Germany has unmasked herself, it 

 cannot be said too often. In stating its con- 

 victions as to how the present position has been 

 brought about, the Committee is also repeating a 

 twice-told tale. It has been due to a number of 

 causes. They are thus summarised in the report. 

 First, the conservative influence of history and 

 tradition, engendering a feeling of over-confidence 

 in the maintenance of our position, and in the 

 methods hitherto pursued, with but little recogni- 

 tion of ^he necessity for constant vigilance and 

 constant effort to meet the changing conditions 

 and requirements of world trade. Secondly, the 

 admitted success in many directions of the com- 

 petition of Germany with the United Kingdom was 

 due in part to the comparatively late entrance of 

 German industry into the field ; that economic con- 

 ditions in Germany made cheap production jk)s- 

 sible ; that she started with all the advantages 

 of completely modern equipment and without the 

 handicap of a traditional organisation. Lastly, 

 that, 



from the first there was in Germany complete re- 

 cognition of the great value of the application of 

 science to industry and the close co-operation of the 

 two; this, though most strikingly exemplified in the 

 chemical trades, may fairly be said to be characteristic 

 of German industry as a whole. Amongst British 

 manufacturers, though there were some marked excep- 

 tions, there was, speaking generally, no such recogni- 

 tion. 



It is admitted not only that the war has served 

 to bring home to us the weakness of our 

 economic position, but also that its requirements 

 have roused us to an intensitj^ of effort unparalleled 

 in the industrial history of the nation, and in no 

 branch has our potential p>ower and productive 

 capacity been more strikingly shown than in that 

 of chernical industry. The Committe'e is glad to 

 recognise that 



through British industry generally the cutting off of 

 foreign supplies, of corrimodities hitherto regarded as 



NO. 2548, VOL. I.01] 



indispensable and unobtainable except from abroad, 

 has stimulated British manufacturers to efforts to fill 

 the gap by the provision of similar commodities or 

 adequate substitutes. In numerous directions attempts 

 of this kind have been made, with and without 

 Government assistance, to establish new lines of pro- 

 duction of varying degrees of importance, and a sub- 

 stantial measure of success has already been attained 

 in some cases . . . and the knowledge and experience 

 gained during the war should be a most valuable 

 asset in respect to our post-war trade. 



In the special cases of drugs and dyes it is not 

 only a question of competition with our enemies 

 for a portion of the world's trade. Apart from 

 the purely commercial aspect, these things are of 

 vital importance to the health and economic life of 

 the nation, both in war and in peace. It is abso- 

 lutely necessary for our national welfare — nay, 

 even' for our very existence — that we should be 

 no longer solely dependent upon outside sources 

 of supply, and it is therefore the bounden duty 

 of the Government to see that adequate steps are 

 taken to ensure that such a consummation shall 

 be reached. If individual enterprise is unable to- 

 secure it, then it must be the business of the State,, 

 in the interests of national security, to undertake 

 its attainment. 



SCIENTIFIC WORK IN INDIA.^ 



THE Board of Scientific Advice for India, the 

 origin and functions of which were ex- 

 plained in these pages three years ago (Nature, 

 July 8, 1915), has, like similar |3odies else- 

 where, felt the effect of war conditions. The 

 board has been strengthened by the addition of 

 a representative of the Indian Munitions Board, 

 and power has been conferred upon the president 

 to appoint sub-committees, membership of which 

 need not be confined to members of the board, for 

 the purpose of dealing with particular investiga- 

 tions. The board has found it necessary to 

 modify the treatment of programmes of 'work 

 submitted by individual scientific departments, 

 and to resolve that the annual report for 1916-17 

 be confined to a brief statement of work actually 

 done during the year, also that the bibliography 

 of publications bearing on particular subjects be 

 consolidated. But the establishment of a Zoo-^ 

 logical Survey, recorded for the year under 

 notice, has not affected the composition of the 

 Board of Scientific Advice, representation of this 

 subject having been provided for already. That 

 its organisation should have been so slightly 

 affected affords striking evidence of the soundness 

 of the original constitution of the board. 



The report of the board for 1916-17 is an in- 

 teresting document, and much of its contents, 

 especially where the applications of science are 

 concerned, may repay perusal outside India. In 

 agriculture the low values of available phosphate 

 in certain Indian soils — at times only J^ to ^V of the 

 amount usually regarded as necessary for fertility 



1 Annual Report of the Board of Scientific Advice for India for the Year 

 1916-17. Pp.172. (Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, India, 

 1918.) Price IS. qd. 



