io6 



NATURE 



[February 2j, 1919 



times to engineering journals and to the proceed- 

 ings of technical societies, is possibly susceptible 



some slight improvement in co-ordination, 

 Jin h will no doubl receive consideration in future 

 editions, and so bring it up to the admirable 

 standard of the subject-matter. 



A chapter is devoted to a consideration of the 

 action of sea-water on cement, in which the 

 author details the results of certain experiments 

 which he carried out. The conclusion which he 

 arrives at in regard to the use of salt water for 

 mixing is scarcely one which will be endorsed b\ 

 all engineers who have had experience in maritime 

 works. When concrete is deposited, as is often 

 the case, beneath the surface of the sea, in a 

 viscous condition, it is a matter of indifference 

 whether it has been mixed with fresh water or 

 with salt — the salinity of its environment is bound 

 to permeate it before it has time to set. This 

 consideration applies equally to mass work 

 deposited at low water in tidal situations. 



Brysson Cunningham. 



SOME DEVELOPMENTS IX BRITISH 

 INDUSTRY DURING THE WAR. 



IT is, of course, too soon to attempt to gauge 

 the full effect of the great war upon the 

 development of the world's industries, or to seek 

 to determine how it will ultimately affect the rela- 

 tive position of the belligerent nations as trading 

 communities or their respective influence upon 

 international commerce. But there can scarcely 

 be a doubt that with the defeat of the Central 

 Powers, and the consequent upheaval in their 

 social and political status, the centre of gravity, 

 as it were, of the whole system of the world's 

 trade has been profoundly, and, indeed, funda- 

 mentally, changed. During the last four or five 

 decades Germany had achieved an astonishing 

 expansion in industrial progress. In certain 

 branches of manufacture, especially in those 

 directly dependent upon the application of 

 science, she was rapidly becoming supreme among 

 the nations, and could, in many cases, impose her 

 own terms upon those who desired to purchase her 

 products. 



The war has served to bring home to us, as 

 nothing else could have done, the ramifications of 

 the subtle and insidious conspiracy by which her 

 1 ' nment and her leaders of finance, commerce, 

 and industry sought to make that supremacv com- 

 prehensive and complete, assured and unassail- 

 able. As regards the technical applications ul 

 science, blindi d by her unquestioned successes in 

 assimilating and turning to practical account tin- 

 discoveries nl nil , reative nations, she had lulled 

 herself into the In lie! that she had nothing to fear 

 from any of her trade competitors, certainly not 

 from this country, from whom she had appro- 

 priated and steadily exploited certain "key " indus- 

 tiies. Furthermore, she had persistently, 1> 

 methods fair and foul, soughl through the course 

 ol years to obtain control of the principal sources 

 I important raw materials, i specially of such as 

 Nl ). 2574, VOL. I02] 



are essential in modern warfare or necessary for 

 the welfare of her people in such a war as she 

 contemplated. She had studiously contrived also 

 that this control should work to the disadvantage 

 of this country in case we should be drawn into 

 the struggle. This latter fact might be illustrated 

 by a hundred examples culled practically from 

 every oversea Dominion. It was only on the out- 

 break of war, and on our inevitable participation 

 in it, that the meaning and true intention of this 

 i lilts and treacherous combination were fully 

 realised. 



When, therefore, we were driven to draw the 

 sword in compliance with our treaty obligations, 

 we were suddenly face to face with the peril in 

 which we stood from a too trustful confidence 

 in the integrity of a nation the highest 

 ethical and political ideals of which are now 

 seen to have been based upon 'he precepts 

 and practices of a dynasty which, in raising 

 it to power with a ruthless disregard of 

 everv moral consideration, at length over- 

 teached itself, and involved itself in ruin and 

 its people in disaster. How we grappled with 

 this peril and overcame it has been the wonder 

 and admiration of the civilised world, and will ever 

 remain one of the proudest episodes in our national 

 history. Nothing in our existence more strikingly 

 exemplifies the innate qualities and genius of our 

 race. For years past it was the confident belief 

 of the intellectuals of Germany that we were a 

 decadent people, that we had lost our old-time 

 virility and were enervated by wealth and material 

 success. To those who only superficially knew 

 us, and were, moreover, biassed by a pre- 

 disposition to exalt themselves and to regard more 

 the motes in other people's eyes than the beam 

 in their own, there might appear some ground for 

 this belief. We were too much concerned in 

 minding our own business and in seeking to solve 

 our own social problems to pay the heed that the 

 sequel showed we ought to have done to the 

 Machiavellism of our cunning and deceitful foe. 

 But the shock of war brought a rude awakening, 

 at first to us, and ultimately to our enemies. We, 

 like them, have been tried as in a furnace, and we 

 1! least have come triumphantly through the 

 orcfeal, welded, strengthened, and ennobled, with 

 purer ideals and a larger and richer conception 

 of our place and destiny in the world. The beaten 

 and disillusioned foe will, we may hope, be no less 

 bettered bv the fiery trial; bruised with adversity, 

 her pride fallen with her fortune, and her 

 "swashing and martial outside" a hateful 

 memory, let us trust that she will throw down 

 her false gods. In that case, what we learned 

 to know and to respect in the Germany of old will 

 not be wholly destroyed; we may hope it is too 

 ingrained in the national character not to reassert 

 itself, and that it will bring her once more within 

 the comity of nations. 



The true storv of this most momentous episode 

 will tax the insight and imagination of successive 

 historians for centuries to come, for the world has 

 never witnessed the like of it, and will, we trust, 



