March 25, 1920] 



NATURE 



95 



example, as the Dardanelles Expedition — with 

 reg-ard to which it is recorded in Lord F"isher's 

 " Memories " 2 : "The Cabinet Council reached its 

 <()nclusions without drawing- the opinion of the 

 expert thereat for its guidance " — that the tech- 

 lical experts are ignored; on the contrary, many 

 (Kamples can be g^iven of instances when, in 

 relation both to important technical aspects of 

 departmental policy and to simple matters of 

 executive detail, the advice of the technicians has 

 been overruled or not soug^ht. 



The root cause of the mischief under discussion 

 lies in the system of the Civil Service. A privi- 

 leged class has been allowed to grow up there, a 

 class which, by reason of its proximity to the 

 Minister and of the long service of the individual 

 members composing it In one particular office, 

 lias obtained too great an influence, and is thus 

 enabled to exercise an ascendancy not only over 

 Ministers, who flit through their Departments, but 

 also over those officials whose early years are 

 spent on executive and technical duties. 



The remedy for the present unsatisfactory state 

 of affairs as regards the position of the technical 

 expert is not far to seek. As matters stand to-day, 

 the technical staffs in the Government Departments 

 have too little influence and authority, whilst the 

 Civil Service clerk has too much Influence and an 

 excess of authority. The disparity between the 

 powers of these two classes is a source of public 

 danger, and the way to obviate It is by a thorough 

 reorganisation of the Civil Service and its system. 

 What is required is that the chief administrative 

 posts shall forthwith cease to be a monopoly of 

 the clerical staffs. A suitable organisation for the 

 Civil Service would be one which provided that 

 entrants into every branch of It should, as a rule, 

 begin their careers in an executive grade, and 

 be promoted to occupy administrative posts at 

 tlie headquarters of a Ministry or Department 

 only after giving proof that they were familiar with 

 the practical aspects of the matters they might 

 be called on to administer. By the introduction of 

 such an organisation into the Civil Service, it 

 would be possible to select the best qualified 

 officers in each branch for the important adminis- 

 trative posts, and, in consequence, render pos- 

 sible the adoption of a system whereby all matters 

 referred to headquarters on which decisions have 

 to be passed would come invariably before those 

 who were experts in the particular subject upon 

 which action had to be taken. 



* Published by Hodder and Stouchton. Price 2if. net. 



NO. 2630, VOL. 105] 



Aeronautical Research. 



Applied. Aerodynamics. By Leonard Bairstow. 



Pp. xii + 566. (London: Longmans, Green, 



and Co., 1920.) Price 32s. net. 



MPATIENTLY as we have waited for the 

 publication of this book, we feel that its 

 appearance could scarcely have been more oppor- 

 tune. For here, as we believe, will be found 

 abundant evidence in support of those who, like 

 the Committee for Education 'and Research in 

 Aeronautics, have striven to resist the break-up of 

 our aerodynamics laboratories and design staffs. 

 Research is always costly, aeronautical research 

 superlatively so ; and a public whose ear has been 

 somewhat dulled by the insistence with which its 

 claims were urged — not always wisely — during the 

 war is somewhat naturally deafened now, by 

 strident calls for economy, to any temperate state- 

 ment of its claims. It is not promises that are 

 wanted at the present time, to justify further 

 expenditure, but a record of things achieved ; and 

 although the tangible results of British science 

 and invention, as applied to the construction of 

 aircraft, have appealed, and by the glamour of 

 long-distance flying are still appealing, to the 

 popular imagination, yet it has resulted from 

 secrecy necessary in war time that the foundations 

 upon which these successes have been built — the 

 patient, detailed investigations which have sup- 

 plied our designers with the data they required 

 — are familiar only to a very few, being for the 

 most part contained In reports of which the circu- 

 lation, no less than the appeal, has been limited 

 to specialists. 



Now, within one volume of reasonable dimen- 

 sions and large type, we are presented with an 

 authoritative review of the work achieved by our 

 research organisations during five years of strenu- 

 ous activity. We have no fears that Impartial 

 judgment will pronounce the time and expenditure 

 to have been wasted. Most branches of applied 

 science have developed rapidly under the stimulus 

 of war conditions, but of applied aerodynamics it 

 might without serious exaggeration be said that 

 the science has been created. The pioneer work Is 

 done, but to those who read Mr. Bairstow's book 

 carefully It will be evident that on every sid6 lie 

 fields for research of which scarc^y the surface 

 has been broken, and that no mtstake could be 

 more disastrous, if we acknowledge the import- 

 ance of aeronautics, than a refusal now to avail 

 ourselves of the experience acquired by those few 

 men to whom Its present state of development 

 Is due. 



We do not, of course, Imply that the book Is 



