1 8 8 Funds for supporting State Lab or a tories. 



provided for by means of voluntary effort, nor can its 

 benefits be restricted to a locality ; and because there 

 appears to be scarcely any other way (except by ap- 

 plication of University revenues) in which discoverers 

 can be satisfactorily recompenced for their labour. 

 Also " Government should for its own sake honour 

 the men who do honour and service to the country." 

 (Faraday.) 



The founding of State laboratories for original re- 

 search was proposed and advocated by the late 

 Lieutenant-Colonel Strange, F.R.S., in communica- 

 tions read before the British Association, and in 

 -evidence given before the Royal Commissioners.* As 

 the erection and maintenance of State laboratories 

 would require a large sum of money, and as all classes 

 of the community would share in the benefit, it is 

 reasonable to suggest that the money should come 

 from some source towards which all classes of the 

 community, either directly or indirectly contribute, 

 and therefore from some national fund. 



In national improvements, expense is quite a second- 

 ary consideration ; the funds however for providing 

 State laboratories already exist ; the sum of nearly 

 ; 600,000 has accumulated in the form of fees received 

 by Government for the granting of patents for inven- 

 tions ; and as the discoveries made by scientific men 

 form the materials by means of which those inven- 

 tions were made, the money thus accumulated may 

 be justly claimed by scientific discoverers as a suitable 



* See Reports of Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction and Advancement 

 of Science, Vol. 2, pp. 75 92. 



