ii2 GERMAN SCIENCE 



began to manufacture artificial indigo, she imported the natural 

 product to the value of 635,000. In 1911 the import had 

 fallen to 22,000, i.e. $, whilst in 1912 Germany exported 

 her artificial indigo to the value of over 2,000,000. I need 

 hardly say that throughout all this time there have been 

 plenty of voices, especially in this country, declaring that 

 artificial indigo could never equal and never replace the 

 ' good old-fashioned ' natural product, and that our appre- 

 hensions about a great industry in our Indian dependency 

 were quite uncalled for. These people are now faced by facts 

 that could have been foreseen by any intelligent student of 

 the past. 



It is not unusual to hear the coal-tar industry referred to as 

 if it only related to the manufacture of dyes. This, however, 

 is a great mistake. It has gathered round it a great variety 

 of collateral manufactures of the utmost importance to phar- 

 macy, agriculture, photography, and many other practical 

 arts. It is a sort of central region of enterprise for a host of 

 scientific industries and comprises a standing army of industrial 

 pioneers armed with the finest weapons that science can forge. 1 



I think there can be no doubt that the development of the 

 coal-tar industries in Germany has had a far-reaching effect 

 on the national attitude towards science, and particularly in 

 this respect that it formed a gigantic object lesson as to the 

 industrial value of what is called pure science. It must be 

 remembered that the chemists from whose researches these 

 great industries arose were in the first instance men working 

 at scientific investigation in a perfectly disinterested way; 

 they were such men as might fitly be described by terms, 

 which in the mouths of unsympathetic practical men are often 



1 This statement has of course been literally verified during the war, for 

 it has been in these works that the Germans have improvised their manu- 

 facture of explosives under blockade and have elaborated the manufacture 

 of poison gas. 



