NATURE 



253 



THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 1920. 



The Chemical Industries of German 

 Rhineland. 



IN 1916, as a result of war conditions, British 

 chemical manufacturers formed an association 

 with the view of strengthening- and consolidating 

 their position by mutual help and co-operation. 

 Vfter the declaration of the armistice the associa- 

 lon dispatched a Mission to Germany, under the 

 g^uidance of the Department of Overseas Trade, 

 to study the present position of German chemical 

 industry. The Mission consisted of twenty mem- 

 bers of the association, representing various 

 branches of chemical manufacture, and it was 

 accompanied by a military representative and by 

 delegates of the Department of Overseas Trade, 

 the Board of Trade, the Local Government Board, 

 ind Canadian interests. Thirty-nine works were 

 \ isited, all of them in German Rhineland and in 

 zones occupied by the Allies from north of Cologne 

 to Mannheim. The inquiry resolved itself into a 

 tudy of the position of the following sections of 

 hemical industry, as developed in Germany, viz. 

 I ) Heavy chemicals ; (2) coal-tar products, inter- 

 mediates, and dyestuffs ; (3) fine organic and 

 [pharmaceutical products ; (4) general inorganic 

 products. 



The report of the Mission is of the highest 

 public importance, and merits the attentive con- 

 sideration of every chemical manufacturer in the 

 lingdom. It is, however, too technical to be 

 icalt with here. We are concerned rather with 

 its general purport and with the lessons and warn- 

 ings it conveys. These are given in the summary 

 of the report which the association has caused to 

 be printed and published. ^ We trust it will be 

 widely circulated and read. The moral it incul- 

 cates is summed up in this one brief sentence : 

 "German chemical industry has been one stu- 

 pendous organisation for effecting and promoting 

 the application of science to industry " — a state- 

 ment which, we agree with the writer of the sum- 

 mary, " should be displayed, not only in every 

 office, but in every educational institution in the 

 kingdom," as well as "in all Government 

 Departments." 



At the same time, there is nothing very new 

 in this pronouncement. It has been the burthen 

 of innumerable articles and public addresses during 

 the last half-century ; iand we see their effect in the 



1 A Sunmary of the Report of the Briti»h Chemical Mission on 

 (^ hemic.ll Faciories in the Occupied Area of Germany. (Association of 

 r.ritish Chiniical Manufacturers, 166 Piccadilly, W.i.) 



NO. 2635, VOL. 105] 



multiplication of our provincial universities and 

 the creation of our various technical colleges and 

 schools. Anyone at all familiar with the history 

 of these institutions knows that their creation has 

 been entirely due to the action of a few public- 

 spirited men who have laboured, in season 

 and out of season, and often under sore 

 discouragement, to effect their establishment. In 

 no single instance have they been due to the spon- 

 taneous impulse of a whole community, prompt 

 to recognise and to appreciate the value of science 

 to industry. Even when established, there was, 

 as a rule, no very widespread desire, at all events 

 at the outset, to take advantage of the oppor- 

 tunities they afforded. In most of them their day 

 of small things was a fairly long period. 



But the coming of the war brought a great 

 awakening. The national importance of science 

 was recognised as never before. We then realised 

 we were confronted with a nation that had sedu- 

 lously cultivated science in its application to prac- 

 tically every art and every industry of peace, as 

 well as of war, and we were amazed' and dis- 

 quieted at our own shortcomings and our supine 

 neglect. The new Education Act is a measure of 

 the degree to which the country has been roused. 

 The ease and practical unanimity with- which it 

 was passed are the clearest proofs of the public 

 conviction of its necessity. 



The document before us, emanating from a 

 body of experts eminently qualified to express an 

 authoritative opinion, will serve to strengthen that 

 conviction. It deals, of course, mainly with only 

 one branch of applied science ; but, as it happens, 

 it has been a branch which has rendered extra- 

 ordinary service to the country at one of the 

 most critical periods of its history. It was not so 

 much our knowledge of chemistry that helped us, 

 or the facilities we possessed of applying it. In 

 these respects we were lamentably behind our 

 chief enemy, and that enemy knew it. But she 

 reckoned without the national characteristics 

 which ultimately saved the situation, and, luckily 

 for us and the world, her lightning stroke missed 

 its aim, and she was compelled by circumstances 

 .to give us time to develop and apply them. But 

 it is safe to say that, had we been capable of 

 taking up the position before the war that we 

 were in at its close, its duration would have been 

 greatly curtailed, and it is conceivable, indeed, 

 that it would never have been begun. 



The summary of the report, concise as it is, 

 covers more ground than can be dealt with in a 

 single article. We must therefore confine our- 



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