NATURE 



421 



I HURSDAY, J \\r ^RY 30, > • 



SCIENCE IN PARL1 I KENT. 

 TTHE practical absence of leading representa- 

 *■ tives ol scientific knowledge and res 

 in the new Parliamenl is the subjecl ol an article 

 in the Times of January 21. Among the 707 

 meml ire only two Fellows of the [loyal 



\, \|.. Balfonr and Sir Joseph 1. armor, 

 neither of whom can be considered specifically to 

 r , l„, cience. 1 he work of Parliamenl is 



and more coming to be a sordid scrimmage 

 of hereditary, vested, class, and sectional inte- 

 rests. Oul of ihe base-metal of the various self- 

 seeking coteries represented agrarian, com- 

 mercial, financial, professional, proletarian, and 

 so on — by some obscure alchemy too absurd for 

 belief, Westminster is supposed to effect a syn- 

 thesis of the pure gold of wisdom, and In its odd 

 moments I rum this conjuring entertainment to 

 administer the affairs of an Empire on which the 

 sun never sets. The helpless public, as in America 

 at its worst, is on the point of abandoning its 

 government to a peculiar people with aptitudes 

 and codes of conduct which in their private life 

 they abhor and despise, and with an intellectual 

 outlook and unteachableness similar to that of 

 the traditional type of public-school legislator 

 whom they have succeeded, but without their 

 reputation for integrity, altruism, and incorrupti- 

 bility. The practical problem is, How are the 

 learned men — of whose learning- and research the 

 twentieth century is, and from whose brains and 

 laboratories arises the necessity for the meta- 

 morphosis now blindly and vehemently convulsing 

 it — to pull with something more nearly approxi- 

 mating their true weight dans cette gaUre? 



In the article referred to, Members of Parlia- 

 ment are divided into two classes: — First, repn 



lines of the great working-class organisa- 

 tions, the subscriptions of which supply the neces- 

 sary election funds, and the membership of which 



the necessary electoral backing- to secure 



their return; and, secondly, persons with money. 



and leisure, derived from an inherited or acquired 



competence, suffii "able them to woo an 



A third class, numcricallv perhaps the 



most important of all, might have been distin- 



hed, the nominees of the party organisations, 



the election funds of which are derived from 



ins that are not disclosed, hut are generally 



believed such is the rottenness Ol the State ol 



Denmark to be discreditable in degrees varying 



from the corrupt sale of honours and peerage-, to 



the "legitimate" contributions of powerful -• 



NO. 2570, VOL. I02] 



tional interests. The men who devote their lives 

 to scientific studies and investigations, all unin- 

 tentionally and almo; ously rearranging 



thereby the foundation igainst its will, 



do not acquire such a competence as election ex- 

 penses require, and have no mass following in the 

 electorate, who rarely hear their names. Neither 

 are they by intellectual training and character the 

 stall out ot which sound party men, beloved of 

 the caucuses, are made, v oting "straight " on the 

 great part) issues in return for unconsidered trifles 

 in the way of preferment, influence, a asm. 



i hi j are segregated, to their own and the nation's 

 detriment, from any share in the solution of the 

 vast and overwhelming problems which their 

 activities in the first instance create. 



A further difficulty, though one common alike 

 to all doing any work worth doing, whether crea- 

 tive, constructive, or mereK vocational, is that a 

 parliamentarv career involves, at least for the time 

 being, the sacrifice of their own field of work. 

 This, which mav appear to many, at first sight, a 

 consequence fatal to the proper representation of 

 science in Parliament, as a matter ol fad is faced 

 daily under existing economic conditions lay tin- 

 scientific investig-ator in its acutest form. By- 

 virtue of his eminence in investigation he is 

 selected for some desirable bread-winning posi- 

 tion, and, though he continue by force of habit 

 for a time to strive to retain a footing in his 

 original domain, amid the responsibilities and pro- 

 fessional duties his office entails. Nemesis has him, 

 and does it much matter whether it carry him to 

 Westminster or to a university principalship or 

 professorship? Besides, many go willingl} 

 enough. Was it not Huxley who said that one 

 of the besetting sins of the investigator was the 

 craving for change and novelty, the turning from 

 the field that has been explored to the fascination 

 of the new? Scores sacrifice their special gifts 

 for causes relatively trivial on the altar ot duty 

 to their own microcosm, and why not a few to 

 the primary affairs of the nation? 



The practical problem thus in its essentials is 

 twofold: the provision of election expenses, and 

 the provision of the electorate. With regard to 

 the first, the suggestion has been made that the 

 join.1 Board ot Scientific Societies should insti- 

 tute an election fund, as is done by the National 

 Union Ol lei, hers and other bodies, and as, pre- 

 sumably, is contemplated by the medical pro- 

 fession in its recent action to secure more 

 adequate representation in Parliamenl Once a 

 hue ol action is decided upon, the firsl question 



.in scarcelj involve any insuperable difficulty. It 

 is the second that brings us the real 



I problem. 



