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NATURE 



[October ii, 1917 



ORGANISATION OF CHEMICAL INDUSTRY 



AFTER THE WAR. 

 A MONG the problems comprehended under that 

 •^^ somewhat elastic term "Reconstruction," 

 none is more important to the economic future of 

 this nation than the organisation of its chemical 

 industry. The position in which we stood 

 immediately after the outbreak of hostilities 

 revealed only too plainly with what foresight and 

 craft Germany had organised her trade and linked 

 up her manufactures in view of the world-wide 

 conflict up)on which she deliberately and "of 

 malice prepense " embarked after forty years of 

 sedulous preparation. So^ intimate a union as was 

 then made manifest between the governing powers 

 and the leaders of industry, and of chemical 

 industry in particular, in the common effort to 

 secure the domination of the world is without a 

 parallel in history. 



The unbridled lust of conquest which moved 

 Germany was not wholly the outcome of an 

 arrogant and aggressive militarism. The spirit 

 which still pervades masses of her people shows 

 that the origin of the war had its roots much more 

 deeply and widely spread. We are out to crush 

 Prussianism, by which we mean the unscrupulous 

 policy which actuates the dynasty which has 

 become the predominant power and directing force 

 among the Central Powers, But Prussianism 

 would never have obtained its present influence 

 unless it had appealed to a more deep-seated desire 

 than territorial aggrandisement, or a more potent 

 influence than the spectacle of increased dynastic 

 pomp and pride. North Germans are far from 

 being wholly beloved throughout the Empire. Still, 

 in spite of the existence of other crowned heads 

 and other capitals in Germany, Berlin as effectu- 

 ally rules the destinies of the Empire as Paris does 

 those of France, which has only one metropolis 

 and nowadays no dynastic embarrassments. Nor is 

 militarism so universally popular that, even in 

 Prussia, it could have maintained the struggle 

 after so many disappointments and disillusion- 

 ments and such widespread misery, unless aided 

 and strengthened by other factors. 



The fact is — and we cannot recognise it too 

 clearly — the underlying and actuating force which 

 still moves Germany, as it has moved her from the 

 very beginning of the struggle, of which it is the 

 real cause, is economic ; it is the desire for power 

 as the means of securing wealth. The process of 

 peaceful penetration was too slow : she sought by 

 force to gain, as by a stroke, what the methods of 

 peace would assuredly have brought her if she had 

 had only the patience to wait. The military party 

 are not the sole aggressors ; rather they have been 

 the tools and cat's-paws of a still larger and more 

 powerful class, of far wider influence and much 

 richer in material power and intellectual efficiency, 

 and united by a definite and common impulse. The 

 military power of Germany may, and undoubtedly 

 will, be crushed by military methods, but the 

 power of that aggressive element in Pan- 

 Germanism which has its roots in economic 

 influences can be effectually combated only by ' 

 NO. 2502, VOL. 100] 



economic means — that is, by organisation and the 

 closest co-operation. 



The conditions of a lasting peace which are 

 faintly adumbrated — we cannot say defined — by 

 Germany's present Chancellor, and which are 

 re-echoed, more or less vaguely, by leading 

 spokesmen of the only one of her Allies that counts 

 among the industrial communities of the world, 

 clearly indicate that amongst the overwhelming 

 wreck and ruin that the Central Powers have 

 brought upon themselves the only salvage that is 

 now possible is their economic life, and every 

 effort is to be made to secure it. The rulers of 

 Germany now realise, as General Smuts tells us, 

 that they have lost the .war : the legend of their 

 military invincibility is a myth, and their deluded 

 people will soon recognise that fact. Their 

 Chancellor now, apparently, fears that the nations 

 may enter upon an economic war, and so stamp 

 out that phase which Germany herself imported 

 into it. With nearly the whole of the civilised 

 world embittered against her, he is plainly appre- 

 hensive of her future in the struggle to which her 

 ■greed and selfishness have brought her. Hence 

 all the vague talk about the "freedom of the 

 seas," which is meaningless in the mouths of 

 those who countenance and direct a piracy which 

 is infinitely more abominable, as an international 

 menace, than that waged, of old time, by Bar- 

 bary corsairs or the buccaneers of the Spanish 

 Main. 



We, like the Chancellor, deprecate the world- 

 wide economic warfare he dreads. But we would 

 remind him that his countrymen, by means fair 

 and foul, had already embarked upon it, even 

 before the beginning of military hostilities, and 

 that now, in their rage and chagrin, they threaten 

 to continue it with a tenfold violence and persist- 

 ency. We regard the Chancellor's pious platitudes 

 as on a par with his feeble and insincere gene- 

 ralities about the so-called " freedom of the seas." 

 His motive is obvious. In both cases he desires 

 to see the strength of this country undermined, 

 whilst reserving to Germany unrestricted power to 

 pursue her present policy. 



It behoves us, therefore, to be watchful and 

 alert. The Minister of Reconstruction has acted 

 wisely in appointing a committee, as announced 

 elsewhere in this issue, to advise him on the subject 

 of the position of the chemical trades after the war. 

 Dr. Addison has requested the committee to con- 

 duct its deliberations with a view to the creation 

 of some organisation which should be adequately 

 representative of the trade as a whole, and by 

 means of which the trade may be enabled here- 

 after to continue to develop its own resources and 

 to enlist the closest co-operation of all those 

 engaged in the chemical industry. 



We welcome the appointment of the committee, 

 although we have some doubt as to whether its 

 composition is altogether such as will command the 

 confidence of the chemical trades as a whole. It 

 consists of four members connected with the 

 Ministry of Munitions, one gentleman attached 

 to the Ministry of Shipping, three members 



