October 30, 1919] 



NATURE 



i75 



under the chairmanship of Lord Haldane, is 

 now before us. This Sub-Committee was 

 appointed " to inquire into the responsibilities 

 of various Departments of the Central Executive 

 Government and to advise in what manner the 

 exercise and distribution by the Government of 

 its functions should be improved." It is obvious 

 that here is a field of inquiry which is necessarily 

 very extensive and very complicated, and the 

 rei>ort fills eighty octavo pages. We have already 

 (April 3) dealt with some aspects of the report, 

 but the subject is so important that no excuse is 

 necessary for considering others now. One 

 of the most striking declarations by the 

 Sub-Committee is to be found very early in the 

 report in reference to the formulation of policy, 

 for the conclusion is reached that "the duty of 

 investigation and thought, as preliminary to 

 action, might with great advantage be more 

 definitely recognised." In elaborating its 

 remarks on the importance of distinguishing the 

 business of inquiry and research from that of 

 administration, it refers especially to the desira- 

 bility of giving special attention to the methods of 

 recruiting the personnel to be employed in the 

 Departments charged with the duty of inquiry, 

 research, and reflection before policy is defined and 

 put into operation. 



This is one of the questions concerning which 

 there is room for criticism of the methods gener- 

 ally pursued ia the past. Attention has been 

 repeatedly directed to the neglect of physical and 

 natural science in the qualifications demanded of 

 every member of the higher branches of the Civil 

 Service in this country. The effect of this neglect 

 has been that it frequently happens that when a 

 new Department is to be called into existence the 

 men appointed to take charge of the work are 

 deficient in knowledge of the facts, principles, 

 and methods which should be employed in carr)'- 

 ing out their duties, inasmuch as it is still the 

 custom generally to select for these appointments 

 Civil Servants whose good general characters ns 

 active and intelligent men are their only qualifica- 

 l tion. In a few cases, far too infrequent, appoint- 

 ; ments of this kind have been offered to men out- 

 ' side the Civil Service with special qualifications 

 for the work contemplated. Such a post as that 

 of the Government Chemist has necessarily been 

 filled by an eminent outsider, and the Board of 

 Agriculture has in several cases selected for posts 

 in that Department men who have an established 

 reputation in connection with problems relating to 

 agricultural practice. 



The remarks of the Sub-Committee on the 

 necessity for collaboration among Departments so 

 that all information collected by any one Depart- 

 ment may be accessible to all the rest whenever 

 t it is required without waste of energy or time in 

 r re-collection are very appropriate, and it may be 

 hoped will be acted upon. 



To the readers of Nature probably the con- 

 tents of chap. iv. of the report, concerning 

 research and information, will be found most 

 interesting, and among the subjects dealt with in 



NO. 26og, VOL. 104] 



some detail is the work of the Medical Research 

 Committee and of the Department of Scientific and 

 Industrial Research. Both of these cover a wide 

 field. The work of the former may be roughly 

 divided into the study of questions connected with 

 the National Health Insurance Acts on one 

 hand, and general medical research on the other. 

 Here, as in other directions, applications of 

 science are subject to constant modification 

 arising out of the discovery of new facts or prin- 

 ciples. By way of illustration reference may be 

 made to researches on food which are now being 

 carried on. The discoveries which in very recent 

 times have been made as to the existence in 

 certain foodstuffs of the remarkable substances 

 known as vitamines and their non-existence in 

 others must lead to a modification of our views 

 concerning the whole question of dietary and 

 health. The exact nature of the vitamines is at 

 present unknown, whether they consist of definite 

 chemical, but hitherto unrecognised, substances, 

 or whether they consist of mixtures of products of 

 degradation of proteins. All that can be said is 

 that the amount present in any case is minute. 

 It is therefore not sufficient to determine roughly 

 the composition of a given foodstuff and the pro- 

 portion of fat, starch, or protein it may contain. 

 Another line of work arises from the study of the 

 question of the preservation of food by cold 

 storage. It is now well known that the tempera- 

 tures requisite in one case are not suitable in 

 others ; thus the cold required for meat and fish is 

 not required for fruit, and even different kinds of 

 fruit, such as plums and pears, cannot be shipped 

 safely in the same chamber where slight differ- 

 ences of temperature may be found between the 

 centre of the room and the walls. 



The Department of Scientific and Industrial 

 Research, the third annual report of which was 

 noticed in Nature of October 17, 1918, comes in 

 for a good deal of discussion in the report before 

 us. It will be remembered that this is a Depart- 

 ment for which the Lord President of the Council 

 (then Lord Crewe) was responsible, and was 

 created with funds at its disposal for instituting 

 (i) specific researches, (2) scientific research in con- 

 nection with industry, and (3) the award of student- 

 ships or fellowships to assist in research. The sum 

 of i,ooo,oooZ. was granted for use in applying over 

 an agreed period a special stimulus to industry. 

 This fund is applied in making grants to approved 

 trade associations for research to supplement the 

 resources of the associations. Some difficulties 

 have occurred in determining to whom the results 

 of research undertaken by the respective associa- 

 tions belong, and it seems doubtful whether 

 procedure through the agency of trade associa- 

 tions is likely in the long run to prove the best 

 avenue to progress in the way of applying dis- 

 covery to industry. At any rate, the claims of 

 the individual researcher will have to be con- 

 sidered and provided for in each case. 



Funds are also provided by an annual vote for 

 the general purposes of the Department, and from 

 this source assistance is given to other bodies and' 



