May 13, 1920] 



NATURE 



325 



industry, it is the duty of the State to convince the 

 manufacturer of the value and necessity of research in 

 connection with his work. 



The Indian Chemical Service will have research 

 institutes in the centres of industry of every province. 

 These will be in close touch with the works and with 

 works conditions, and deal with questions of 

 immediate practical importance submitted by manu- 

 facturers. They will also carry out research work in 

 connection with the establishment of new industries, 

 and develop a process as far as the unit factory 

 scale. In some cases it will be necessary, in order to 

 demonstrate the value of a process, to erect pioneer 

 factories and work them on the complete commercial 

 scale. Each institute will be under a director of 

 research. 



A central Imperial institute will be located at Dehra 

 Dun. It will be under the Director-General of the 

 Chemical Service, and contain laboratories for 

 inorganic and physical chemistry, organic chemistry, 

 analytical chemistry, and metallurgical chemistry, 

 each controlled by a deputy-director. Questions in- 

 volving fundamental research arising out of the work 

 of the provincial institutes will be dealt with here, as 

 well as the initial work in connection with the estab- 

 lishment of new industries. Research work of an All- 

 India character, such as investigations on the utilisa- 

 tion of forest products, will also be done. 



The report, which should reach England during the 

 course of the next fortnight, should be consulted for 

 further details. It may be added, however, that there 

 is no official control ; the Service will be worked by 

 chemists for chemists. Chemists seconded for service 

 with other Departments will retain their lien on the 

 Chemical Service, but be under the control of the 

 Department to which they have been seconded. 



The provincial institutes will not be under the con- 

 trol of the central institute, which will act towards 

 them in an advisory capacity only. 



In conclusion, I should add that I have discussed 

 the proposed scheme with eminent Indian men of 

 science and prominent business men in different parts 

 of the Empire, and they have told me that thev are 

 prepared to give it their whole-hearted support. More- 

 over, Sir P. C. RSy, the distinguished professor of 

 chemistry in the College of Science, Calcutta, who 

 was a member of the Committee and attended all its 

 meeting^s, while stating at the outset that he was 

 opposed in principle to Government Services generally, 

 nevertheless agreed to each paragraph of the report 

 as .it was passed in its final form. He signed the 

 report subject to a separate note in which he expresses 

 his general approval of the scheme in the following 

 words : "In conclusion, I desire to state that, although 

 I consider that the days of Government Services are 

 over and that the development of industries by the 

 agenrv- of a Government Service is not the most 

 suitable wav of dealing with the problem, yet I agree 

 that, if a Government Service is constituted, the pro- 

 posals of the Committee represent the best method 

 of constituting and carrying on such a service. It is 

 for this reason that I have attached my signature to 

 a report with the major portion of which I am in 

 substantial agreement." 



JocELYN Thorpe. 



I HAVE followed with keen interest the leading 

 article on "The Organisation of Scientific Work in 

 India " in Nature of February 19, and the correspond- 

 ence thereon bv Profs. Soddy and Bateson. Sir Ronald 

 Ross, and others. The note of warning has been sounded 

 not a moment too soon. To me it appears that the 

 Industrial Commission has not been able to make out 

 NO. 26.^7, VOL. 105] 



a very convincing case for the creation of a highly 

 expensive All-India Chemical Service — an elaborate 

 and ordered hierarchy under the almost absolute con- 

 trol of a number of highly paid bureaucrats. The Ser- 

 vices degenerate in India, the land of caste, into so 

 many rigid and watertight compartments unamenable 

 to healthy external influence. 



The manner in which the work of the Service is to 

 be carried on appears to me to be extremely objec- 

 tionable. There is to be a Director^eneral of 

 Research at the Imperial Chemical Institute, with five 

 or six directors at different provincial centres. These 

 officers are to have almost absolute power over the 

 rank and file — the real workers; for not only are 

 the directors to dictate what particular piece of re- 

 search a worker is to take up, but even the publica- 

 tion of the work is to be subject to the consent of 

 the Board of Control. 



For the scheme to be successful the directors must 

 be men who are conversant with almost all the 

 different branches of chemistry, and keep in touch 

 with the most up-to-date advances in their science. 

 Moreover, their minds are to be occupied with swarms 

 of problems awaiting their day to be delivered to the 

 care of the researchers. Lastly, they are to do justice, 

 with the impartiality of a Privy Council Judge, to 

 each individual worker according to his work and 

 accornplishments. Even the greatest chemists of the 

 age would hesitate to acknowledge that they are 

 supermen of this description. 



I am afraid that the proposed Service will simplv 

 be an asylum for a few officials in favour with the 

 Government who find administrative work much more 

 suited to the taste than bottle-washing and other 

 humdrum work of the laborator}-, and want to 

 legalise the exploitation of the brain and labour of 

 the young men just coming out of the universities 

 full of new ideas and enthusiasm for work. We shall 

 have a number of chemists working under a peri- 

 patetic director whose claims to the post will be his 

 seniority, which in India often goes hand in hand with 

 incompetence. I am afraid that the so-called research 

 work will lapse into dull, mechanical, routine out- 

 turn, and will killall enthusiasm and initiative on the 

 part of the actual workers. They are even, as Prof. 

 Soddy remarks, " to be deprived of what little satisfac- 

 tion and independence genuine scientific work for its 

 own sake affords," and in many cases will have to 

 renounce their own work for the propitiation of the 

 directors. 



It seems to be supposed that since there is a 

 Viceroy over governors, a governor over a number of 

 magistrates, and a magistrate over a number of 

 petty officials, so there must be an Imperial chemist 

 over a number of provincial directors, directors 

 over deputy-directors, deputy-directors over sub- 

 deputy-directors, and so on. But in the republic of 

 science the idea of such ordered gradation is absurd. 

 Each branch of science, notably chemistry, has now- 

 grown so vast that a particular worker, however 

 highly gifted, can honestly tackle and follow intel- 

 ligently the developments of only a minute fraction 

 of his subject. In the quest after truth and in the 

 exploration of new paths of knowledge every worker 

 has to find out his own wav, and it not infrequently 

 happens that a young and unknown worker may 

 achieve much more brilliant results than men who 

 have grown grey in the service of science. What is 

 wanted is co-operation, provision for more ample 

 facilities, and the opening up of bettei prospects for 

 tlie earnest-minded and enthusiastic workers. 



In India at the present state of her scientific 

 development, the institution of the Chemical Service 

 on the proposed lines will be not simply a blunder, but 



