122 How to Pi7\' for I he War 



both on the held of battle, in tlie miUtary hospitals, and at 

 home. 



Beside this, almost criminal indifference to and ignorance 

 of the value of our own possessions, as proved by the low 

 amounts of grants hitherto devoted to the scientific ex- 

 ploitation of them, as the Imperial Institute, Kew, and 

 similar institutions know to their cost, this country has 

 also suffered from a lack of organization in carrying out 

 such investigations even when they have been set afoot. 

 " It was suggested to the Government of India," Professor 

 Dunstan told his audience, " that a special search should 

 be made in India for thorium minerals, since the existence 

 of these minerals in Ceylon rendered it probable that they 

 would also be found in India. The reply of the Govern- 

 ment of India was that no special search was necessary as 

 the Geological Survey were already alive to the importance 

 of the subject. There the matter rested until igog, when 

 a German prospector, Schomburg, discovered deposits of 

 monazite sand on the coast of Travancore. Specimens 

 examined at the Imperial Institute showed that the sand 

 was rich in monazite, whilst the monazite contained nearly 

 twice as much thoria as the monazite of Brazil. A 

 company, the Travancore Minerals Company, was sub- 

 sequently formed under German control, and Travancore 

 monazite was worked in German interests. Since the War 

 this company has been reconstructed, with Sir John 

 Hewett as Chairman, and it may therefore be hoped that 

 its valuable produce may be secured for the British gas- 

 mantle industry. In addition to the area worked by this 

 company, other areas of the Travancore sands are to be 

 worked by other British companies, so that in future it is 

 to be expected that the gas-mantle industry in this country 

 will be able to pursue a course of untrammelled develop- 

 ment." How very differently has Germany and the 

 Germans behaved in such matters for many years past ! 



It is a true saying that what is everyone's business is no 

 one's business, and we honestly believe one important 

 reason, if not the main cause of this country's neglect of 

 its overseas riches, has been due to its having hitherto 

 been nobody's business to attend to it. Germany not only 

 drained her own colonies, and the inhabitants thereof, of 

 everything worth having, alive or dead, but overran the 

 surface of the earth, including that covered by the British 

 Empire, with the same tactics, and thereby obtained 

 similar results to our loss. The Imperial Institute, as a 

 centre of learning, has helped to counteract this evil to a 



