32^-4 



NATURE 



[May 13, 1920 



Letters to the Editor. 



XThe Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex- 

 pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to 

 return, or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manu- 

 scripts intended for this or any other part of Nature. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications.'] 



The Indian Chemical Service. 



It would, perhaps, havebeen better if the writer of the 

 leading article entitled "The Organisation of Scientific 

 Work in India," published in Nature of February 19, 

 had held his hand until he had obtained further in- 

 formation concerning the proposed organisation. The 

 report of the Indian Industrial Commission dealt only 

 with the general question, and left the elaboration of 

 any scheme, if such were considered desirable, to 

 special committees which were to be appointed at a 

 later date. The special committees were to be given 

 a free hand, and were left to approach the problem 

 from an unbiassed point of view. 



I was not a member of the Indian Industrial Com- 

 mission, but there is nothing in the report which 

 indicates that the Commission was in favour of a 

 centralised system of scientific services under Govern- 

 ment control such as that which is condemned in the 

 article, and still more emphatically condemned by 

 those who have contributed to the ensuing correspond- 

 ence. As a matter of fact, if the Industrial Commis- 

 sion had recommended such a course, it would not 

 have been supported for one moment by the Chemical 

 Services Committee, over which I had the honour to 

 preside. Indeed, my colleagues and I, as old inves- 

 tigators, would have been fully alive to the absurdity 

 of any such proposal. 



I should like to make my position clear by referring 

 to the conditions we found to prevail in India and to 

 the remedies which we considered necessary in order 

 that the great natural resources of the country might 

 be developed, but I should preface my remarks by 

 saying that I speak for chemistry alone. Other 

 sciences must formulate their own schemes in a 

 manner best suited to their particular requirements. 



The problem presented was twofold : First, the 

 position of the chemists in India, and, secondly, the 

 position of the Indian chemical industry. The posi- 

 tion of chemists we found to be exceedingly unsatis- 

 factory. There are in all about fifty chemists in India, 

 and most of them are attached to established Govern- 

 ment Services, such as forestry, agriculture, medicine, 

 geology, ordnance, and education. In the main, 

 the chemists, although working in the Services, were 

 not attached to them — that is to say, they were in 

 the position of hirelings without any claim to the 

 advantages attaching to Service membership and with- 

 out the possession of the esprit de corps which charac- 

 terises such membership. They were, moreover, for 

 the most part working in isolated positions in the 

 different provinces, and were without any means by 

 which they could press their claims on the official lay 

 mind. In consequence, they were in manv cases 

 receiving totally madequate salaries, and were, in 

 fact, often regarded as some kind of freak druggist — 

 a point of view which is even more prevalent in 

 India than in England. It was clear that the only 

 way by which the chemist in India could be brought 

 to occupy a financial and social position which his 

 education and training demanded was to place him 

 on an equality with members of other Government 

 Services. 



The problem of the chemist was therefore a straight- 

 forward one, and was, in our opinion, open to one 

 answer only. The other point, that of the Indian 

 chemical industry, is perhaps rather more complex. 

 NO. 2637, VOL. 105] 



In the first place, there can be no question, I think, 

 that research in chemistry must be divided into pure 

 research and industrial research. It is true that there 

 is no sharp line of division, but in their extreme forms 

 pure research is carried out entirely for the advance- 

 ment of knowledge, and is without obvious practical 

 bearing, whereas industrial research is done for the 

 advancement and development of industry. The 

 Chemical Services Committee has recommended that 

 pure chemical research should be left to the universi- 

 ties and university institutions, the obvious duty of 

 which is to carry it out. It is not proposed that the 

 chemists attached to university institutions should be 

 normally members of the Service, but it is asked that 

 the universities and university colleges should under- 

 take to train men for recruitment into the Service in 

 the manner recommended by the Committee. 



The Committee considers that recruits should have 

 the following training : — 



(i) An honours degree in chemistry in the first or 

 second class or its equivalent. 



(2) Training in engineering (machine drawing and 

 workshop practice) where such training has not formed 

 part of the course under (1). 



(3) One or two years' training in the methods of 

 chemical research under someone competent to train 

 in research. 



It is not proposed to institute any system of training 

 within the Service, excepting, of course, such practical 

 training as will normally accrue during the working of 

 the Service, and it is asked that the universities and 

 university institutions should give the necessary train- 

 ing under (3) above. For this purpose it is recom- 

 mended that maintenance and equipment grants 

 should be given to promising students to enable them 

 to undergo this training subsequent to graduation. 



The Committee considered that, provided the trainer 

 were a man of recognised ability, the question of the 

 subject in which the. student should be trained could 

 be safely left to him. It agreed that instruction in 

 the methods of chemical research, received after a 

 course such as that given above, was the best train- 

 ing a man could have to develop any initiative and 

 enthusiasm which he might possess,, and that a man 

 so trained ought to be able to turn his hand to any- 

 thing chemical. 



In the case of industrial research it must be remem- 

 bered that chemistry in one form or another under- 

 lies most industries, and that in India the following 

 conditions are present : (a) Great natural resources ; 

 (b) lack of scientific chemical help to develop these 

 resources ; and (c) a public very shy to risk capital 

 without some real assurance of the value of the process 

 it is proposed to finance. 



Obviously, the best means for advancing chemical 

 industry is for the firms or combination of firms 

 engaged in the industry to establish research labora- 

 tories and to work out their own problems by the 

 aid of their own chemists. This is an ideal which 

 the Indian Chemical Service will be formed to foster. 

 It will, for example, help any member of the Service 

 who wishes to pass out into the industry, and it will 

 second members of the Service for temporary employ- 

 ment to firms who wish to investigate any particular 

 problem. But at the present time there are few manu- 

 facturers who employ chemists, and it is evident that 

 some steps are necessary not only to demonstrate to 

 the manufacturer the value of research in connection 

 with his manufacture, but also to demonstrate the 

 possibilities of any particular process to anyone wish- 

 ing to invest capital and start a new industry. 



Who is to do this? There is, we think, onlv one 

 answer, namely, that, as it is to the interest of the 

 State as well as of the manufacturer to develop 



