126 



NATURE 



[Ai 



192c 



the bottom of our action. However disquieted and 

 perturbed we might be with Germany's repeated 

 acts of aggression and with the truculence and 

 arrogance of her methods, strained trade relations 

 would never have induced this Empire to draw the 

 sword. That was not the issue which welded the 

 English-speaking world together. But that Ger- 

 many should have so imagined is intelligible. She 

 had at least good cause for the supposition. 



The special industries which the Bill seeks to 

 promote and assist have originated, so far as this 

 country is concerned, in great measure through 

 and by reason of the war. We were compelled 

 to take them up by sheer necessity. Certain of 

 them were among the things of which the 

 Germans had gradually acquired practically com- 

 plete control for years past. All of them were ne- 

 cessary to our national welfare, and some of them, 

 under the conditions of modern warfare, were 

 essential to our national existence. Our late ex- 

 perience ought surely to have burnt the lesson into 

 the national mind. Never again must we be de- 

 pendent on outside sources for our medicaments 

 and dyes, certain metals, magnetos, glassware, 

 and optical instruments. These special industries 

 — enumerated in the second schedule to the Bill — 

 were in great measure started during the earlier 

 years of the war. They are defined to be indus- 

 tries supplying commodities which are essential 

 to the national safety, as being absolutely in- 

 dispensable to important industries carried on in 

 the United Kingdom, and which formerly were 

 entirely or mainly supplied from countries outside 

 these islands. They cannot be said to be 

 firmly established as yet. Some of them, like the 

 manufacture of synthetic dyes, have made extra- 

 ordinary progress, and their permanence is only 

 a question of time. Others are being developed 

 with more or less rapidity. But every one of them 

 is the subject of continued scientific inquiry and 

 research, and it is the purpose of the projected 

 measure to foster and protect them during this 

 incubatory period. 



To this end it is proposed to create a Council 

 of not fewer than five and not more than nine 

 persons of commercial and industrial experience, 

 to be appointed by the President of the Board 

 of Trade. Its duties will be to watch the 

 course of industrial development and, in consulta- 

 tion with the Department of Scientific and Indus- 

 trial Research and any other Government Depart- 

 ment interested in any special industry, to advise 

 the Board as to the promotion and assistance of 

 the special industries named in the schedule to the 

 NO. 2631, VOL. 105] 



Bill, and any other industry which, in the opinion 

 of the Council, is a special industry in the sense 

 already defined. It is required to examine 

 any proposals made as to the promotion and as- 

 sistance, or any suggestions as to the better 

 organisation or management, of any special in- 

 dustry on the application of any Government 

 Department interested, or any firm or person 

 engaged, in any such industry, to advise the 

 Board as to what steps, if any, should be taken 

 by way of assistance to -conserve or promote any 

 special industry, and to indicate the terms upon 

 which, in its opinion, such assistance should be 

 given. It is further required to make an 

 annual report to Parliament stating what has 

 been the progress of any special industry to which 

 State assistance has been given, and what recom- 

 mendations have been made in respect to it. 

 Lastly, any application made to the Board for 

 State assistance by any firm or person engaged in 

 a special industry shall be referred to the Council, 

 together with any information in the possession 

 of the Board as respects that industry, and the 

 Board may require any firm or persons engaged 

 in that industry to furnish any information which 

 the Council may deem necessary under pain of 

 fine or imprisonment; 



These, no doubt, are somewhat drastic powers, 

 but, it must be remembered, they are asked for 

 in the interests of national security, and it is 

 unlikely that in operation they will prove to be 

 inconsistent with the proper interests of private 

 trading. As the Council will be associated with 

 the Department of Scientific and Industrial Re- 

 search, we assume that it will exert a nurturing* 

 influence upon scientific work through which in« 

 dustries are created and developed. No ona 

 desires to assist an industry which is not itself 

 endeavouring to grow by the use of knowledge," 

 but when this intention is clearly, manifested, the 

 State may very well exercise the function of stimu4 

 lating it or of removing obstacles to expansion! 

 We are faced with the necessity for doi 

 whatever is within our power to promo 

 the establishment of new industries as 

 means of increased production, not only becau 

 our national position demands the use of pr 

 gressive methods, but also to enable us to m 

 the vast expenditure which the war has entaild 

 We have regained in a measure the control of 

 raw materials, and for their profitable use science 

 must co-operate with industry, and both must be 

 the objects of the fostering care of the State. Thef 

 new measure seems to have been conceived in this 

 spirit. , 



