October ii, 191 7] 



NATURE 



107 



of the House of Commons more or less directly 

 ,' interested in chemical industry, together with the 

 \ ex-president of the Society of Chemical Industry, 

 1 who is a leading- member of the coal-gas industry. 

 \ The committee's terms of reference are pur- 



iposely somewhat vague and general, and it 

 remains to be seen how they will be interpreted. 

 In effect, however, they would seem to be limited 

 to the creation, or suggested creation, of an 

 organisation to be adequately representative of 

 chemical industry ; but, of course, much turns 

 . upon the functions with which this organisation 

 V should be endowed and the powers with which it 

 should be entrusted, and it is in defining these 

 functions . and powers that the committee will 

 either make or mar the whole scheme. 



The matter is confessedly one of great difficulty 

 and complexity, and involves far-reaching consider- 

 ations. If the committee's deliberations result 

 in the creation of what is practically a parliament 

 of the industry in which all sections are adequately 

 represented by persons of influence in industrial 

 and commercial circles, and who, by virtue of their 

 knowledge, exp>erience, and position, are able to 

 secure the confidence and co-operation of the 

 Legislature and of Government departments, Dr. 

 Addison's action will undoubtedly result in great 

 benefit. 



We trust, therefore, that the committee, which, 

 it must be admitted, is somewhat bureaucratic in 

 complexion, will take a broad and statesmanlike 

 view of the question which has been submitted to 

 it, and will not be hide-bound bv purely party and 

 departmental considerations, or bv points of fiscal 

 }X)licy or the shibboleths of economic doctrinaires. 

 The present times are somewhat out of joint : the 

 future is full of changed conditions and demands 

 wide and bold outlook. 



In an address delivered to teachers at the Regent 

 Street Polytechnic on October 6, Prof. W. J. 

 *ope, of Cambridge, showed how the huge chemi- 

 al industry of Germany, primarily based on the 

 oal-tar industry, and mainly built up by the 

 fenius and skill of her men of science and techno- 

 c^ists, some of whom had spent their wanderjahr 

 n this country, had been subordinated to the 

 lational effort to secure an economic supremacy 

 n the world. He pointed out how the true mean- 

 ng of that object-lesson had still to be learned by 

 :hose who direct our national policy ; he might 

 lave added, also, by that much larger and not 

 ess influential class which, in the long run, 

 nanages and controls our commercial and indus- 

 rial development, namely, the purely moneyed 

 :lass, which, for the most part, owing to its 

 tartial and limited education, is practically 

 gnorant of the real value and jx)tentiality of 

 "ence in a civilised community. 

 That such is the case is evident from the past 

 istory of the synthetic colour industry in this 

 untry, where it originated. So long as this 

 dustry was under the management and direction 

 business men of science, like Sir W. H. Perkin 

 nd Edward Chambers Nicholson, it flourished 

 nd might have been extended. When it was 

 NO. 2502, VOL. 100] 



fastened upon by capitalists who subordinated the 

 chemist to the counting-house, it gradually lan- 

 guished and ultimately almost died out. Those 

 who have succeeded in keeping it alive in this 

 country have been largely of German or Austrian 

 extraction, for the most part themselves trained 

 as chemists, or who have had practical knowledge 

 of the methods and policy of the great organisa- 

 tions in Germany to which Prof. Pope referred. 

 There is an uneasy feeling abroad that the 

 Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, 

 in its well-meant efforts to administer the million 

 pounds with which it has been entrusted, has, 

 in regard to the resuscitation of the synthetic 

 colour industry in England, failed to pjerceive the 

 true principles by which alone the problem can 

 be properly solved. This aspect of the matter 

 may well receive the attention of Dr. Addison's 

 committee. 



THE STELLENBOSCH MEETING OF THE 

 SOUTH AFRICAN ASSOCIATION. 



THE South African Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science met in annual session for 

 the fifteenth time in what will soon be the " univer- 

 sity town " of Stellenbosch during the first week in 

 July, under the presidency of Prof. John Orr, of the 

 South African School of Mines and Technology, 

 Johannesburg. The sectional meetings were held 

 in the buildings of the institution at present known 

 as Victoria College, but which will become the 

 University of Stellenbosch from April 2, 1918. 

 On the afternoon of Monday, July 2, the visitors 

 were officially welcomed to Stellenbosch by the 

 Mayor, and on the evening of that 'day, in the 

 Conservatorium Hall, the president took the chair 

 and delivered his address, an abridgment of which 

 appeared in Nature of September 27 (p. 76). 



The association met from day to day in five 

 sections, and ninety-seven papers were submitted, 

 including the addresses of the five sectional 

 presidents. Outlines of some of these are 

 sketched below. 



Prof. W. N. Roseveare, of Natal University 

 College, Maritzburg, was president of Section A, 

 and entitled his address " Mathematical Analysis 

 in Science." He sketched the development of the 

 Newtonian philosophy as the basis of all the 

 mechanics of modern civilisation, from Galileo and 

 Newton to Clerk Maxwell's electro-magnetic 

 I theory of light and the electron theory. The old 

 I theory had left some facts unexplained, but the 

 principle of relativity developed during recent 

 years by Einstein and Minkowski had been put 

 forward to explain changes in the orbit of Mer- 

 cury, and had reduced gravitation from a force to 

 a quasi-geometrical property of space-time. 



Prof. M. M. Rindl, professor of chemistry at 

 Grey University College, Bloemfontein, chose as 

 the subject of his presidential address to Section B 

 " Phytochemical Research." In the course of the 

 address Prof. Rindl emphasised the fact that 

 every year many thousands of cattle die within 

 the Union of South Africa, and many aboriginals 



