March 9, 19 16] 



NATURE 



35 



colour works with 14,000 men, and another with 

 9000, now engaged wholly in the manufacture ot 

 high explosives ; to the fact that 75 per cent, of the 

 German collieries have coke ovens installed ; to 

 the synthetic production of 200,000 tons per 

 annum of ammonia, and the conversion of am- 

 monia into nitric acid. 



Great praise was given by Mr. Sharp to the 

 efforts of the older dye-makers in this country and 

 to the new British Dyes (Limited) for their efforts 

 to augment the supply of dyes, and of the Swiss 

 makers he said that he dare not contemplate what 

 our position would have been during the last 

 eightten months without their aid. Alluding to the 

 desirabifity of greater sympathy and closer co- 

 operation between dye-users and dye-makers, he 

 quoted the example of a firm with which the Brad- 

 ford Dyers' Association had been in close asso- 

 ciation, and with which shortly before the war 

 they had placed a contract for 1000 tons of a 

 colour previously obtained from the only maker 

 in Germany. 



The general and fiscal policy urged by the direc- 

 tors of the Bradford Dyers is the appropriation 

 by Government for a term of years of a grant-in- 

 aid of 500,000/., to be administered by a commis- 

 sion charged with the duty of securing- the estab- 

 lishment of the industry in this country by grants 

 on production and for enterprise and initiative. 

 Such a commission, they think, with enterprising, 

 energetic, and fearless leadership, would secure 

 the establishment of the industry in this country, 

 not only on less debatable lines, but alsp much 

 more quickly than by import duties. In the ab- 

 sence of import duties, however, it is thought 

 essential to have most stringent provisions to pre- 

 vent dumping. Whether import duties are im- 

 posed or not, the directors feel that special and 

 extraordinary aid is needed, and they believe that 

 such a commission would make the removal of 

 dependence on Germany more certain than could 

 possibly be hoped for by leaving British colour- 

 makers to their own unaided and unco-ordinated 

 efforts. 



Mr. Sharp's speech is a weighty utterance, 

 remarkable for the clear perception of the grave 

 national and scientific implications of the dye 

 question ; and such pronouncements from our lead- 

 ing industrialists cannot be over-valued for their 

 influence in giving to the public a just perspective. 



WOOD PULPS FOR PAPER-MAKIXG. 



TN the revision of values, moral and material, 

 ^ which is imposed upon us under the present 

 awakening to a new order of realities, it is recog- 

 nised that we have to create in and for the empire 

 a definitive industrial science, and a co-ordinated 

 scientific industr}-. To contribute to this effec- 

 tually, science has to concentrate the trained mind 

 upon manufactures, so as to grapple with its 

 I problems by scientific method, which is quantita- 

 tive qua matter and energy, and comprehensive 

 qua the moral and political factors of production. 

 Manufacturers and business men have the more 



diflficult task of undertaking a whole-hearted study 

 of science so as at least to arrive at a clear grasp 

 of what this comprehensive term connotes in the 

 creative influences of the old order, and the 

 potential directing genius of the new. Both parties 

 to the new order would be thus reciprocally 

 enlightened as a necessary preparation for earnest 

 co-operation. 



In either direction of inquiry it is necessary to 

 set out from clear perspectives of related values, 

 and it is self-evident that those of the natural order 

 claim first attention. Thus, in the organic world, 

 cellulose, starch, and sugar represent primary 

 values of preponderating importance. The in- 

 dustries based upon cellulose, starch, and sugar : 

 their production by agriculture, their transforma- 

 tion by mechanical and chemical means into the 

 derived forms in which they are actually used, 

 together with the countless dependent industries 

 of w'hich these derivatives are in turn but the raw 

 materials, constitute an industrial aggregate which 

 represents, say, one-half of the productive energy 

 of the community. An unprejudiced view of the 

 wider relations of these industries would also re- 

 cognise that Great Britain has well maintained a 

 premier position in their more important sections, 

 as 'well as in their later and more definitely 

 scientific developments. 



This result is due to ordinary scientific, tech- 

 nical, and business enterprise, and the activity of 

 individual pioneers, not to any conscious or co- 

 ordinated movement towards preposed objectives. 

 More particularly is this true of the cellulose indus- 

 tries, which comprise colossal textile manu- 

 factures : paper-making, and such special manu- 

 factures as nitrocellulose and high explosives, 

 celluloid, and artificial silk ; the latter, which is 

 the youngest — in fact a twentieth-century pro- 

 duct — rapidly growing from an article de luxe to 

 the position of a staple textile. 



There is one feature of these industries which 

 marks them for special consideration in relation 

 to the new order to which the civilised world is 

 shaping or being shaped ; that is, their almost 

 complete dependence upon exotic raw materials. 

 In the new^ order of co-ordinated industrial 

 objectives how are we to deal with the present 

 condition of dependence for essential raw 

 materials? 



This is much too vast a question to be dis- 

 cussed within the necessar}' limits of the present 

 article. We must be satisfied to treat a single 

 typical case : and w-e select the paper-making in- 

 dustry. The modern expansion of this industrv 

 in Great Britain has been conditioned by the 

 discovery of new forms of raw material, chiefly of 

 esparto grass (1861), and the wood pulps (1880). 



The importation of esparto in the period 1861- 

 1883 steadily increased to 200,000 tons, at which 

 figure it remains constant, with a variation of 

 5000 tons. The wood pulps, on the other hand, 

 show a uniform progressive increase, and in 1917 

 the figures reached : — 



Tons 



" Chemicar' pulps, i.e., wood celluloses 400,000 



" Meclianicar' pulps, 7>., ground wood 280,000 



