April, 28, 1904] 
LORD MILNER ON SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
WE notice with much satisfaction that Lord Milner 
is a statesman who recognises that scientific 
knowledge is essential to national progress. In a 
speech as honorary president of the Chemical, Metal- 
lurgical, and Mining Society of South Africa, reported 
in the Rand Daily Mail, Johannesburg, of March 28, 
he declared himself strongly in favour of generous 
expenditure upon science, and the utilisation of 
the services of scientific men for the development of 
industries. The following extracts from his address 
will be read with interest by all men of science :-— 
There is one form of expenditure which is sometimes 
called extravagance which is not extravagance, and that is 
expenditure in getting the very best scientific advice. 
Whatever expenditure we may curtail in the future, there 
is one form of expenditure which I hope we shall never 
curtail, and that is the expenditure upon science. And if, 
as I believe, in the course of a few years you find a great 
improvement in the agricultural conditions of this country, 
which means an enormous change in the economic posi- 
tion, greatly benefiting, among others, the mining industry, 
that change will have been due to the fact that from the 
first moment almost of ordered administration in this 
country after the war we sought to get the best scientific 
advice in all branches of agriculture in different parts of 
the world, a matter which does not lead to any immediate 
change, or to any sudden or astonishing results, but which, 
I believe, in course of time will be found to have been the 
most profitable investment possible. 
The same principle applies to industry as it does to 
agriculture—perhaps in a higher degree you may say to 
industry; but then industry here always has had it from 
its beginning—the benefit of first-rate scientific assistance. 
I mean that the immediate advantages resulting from the 
scientific treatment of the great industry of this country 
have been so enormous, so obvious, that from the first 
moment that capital flowed into the country to develop its 
buried resources, the aid of science has been called in. 
Science in the industry has not required that Governmental 
support and impetus which it does require in the more 
neglected branches of our public economy, such as agri- 
culture. Science has always been present in the develop- 
ment of the great industry of this country through the fact 
that the capitalists who have put their money into it have 
recognised from the first its supreme importance. But 
although private enterprise has done with relation to mining 
a great deal which, with regard to agriculture, for instance, 
only the State could do, there still remains something which 
the State can do even for the highly developed and highly 
scientific industries of this country. It can do something, 
and I hope it has already begun to do something. 
I believe we should all agree that it is not enough that 
this great centre of mining industry should be able to 
attract, as it does, the highest ability, the highest scientific 
ability, from different parts of the world. We want to 
do something more than this; we want to grow it for our- 
selves. And we look forward to the time when Johannes- 
burg will have, among other things, a mining school which 
shall be the first in the world, and it shall have, I hope, 
after that, in time, a university and a teaching university— 
not only confined to science—comprising science and the 
arts—but of which the scientific faculties will be the most 
eminent known to mankind. Now, you may say that is 
rather high-faluting and it is looking a long way ahead. 
It may be high-faluting, but it is my honest belief that this 
thing can be accomplished, and it is my intention—I am 
sure it is the intention of the Government, so far as our 
humble powers and abilities go—you know our resources 
at the present time are not the greatest—to do as much 
as we can to begin the foundations of those great institu- 
tions of the future. 
This is a welcome expression of belief in the import- 
ance to the community of scientific study and organised 
kknowledge. Only on these foundations can a country 
be raised from a raw state of nature to a highly- 
developed civilisation, or a great nation satisfy the 
demands of the present day. 
NO. 1800, VOL. 6g] 
NATURE 
615 
NOTES. 
A PROVISIONAL programme of the .meeting of the Inter- 
national Association of Academies, to be held in London at 
Whitsuntide, has been sent to the delegates appointed to 
attend the assembly. The following are among the 
arrangements announced, but they are subject to modifi- 
cation in detail according to the circumstances which may 
arise between now and the date of the meeting. On 
Tuesday, May 24, the commission inquiring into the 
anatomy of the brain will probably meet at Burlington 
House in the morning. In the evening the delegates will 
be entertained by the Royal Society at a banquet at the 
Whitehall Rooms. Wednesday, May 25, and the morning 
of the following day will be devoted to the business of the 
assembly. His Majesty the King has expressed his wish, 
if his engagements will permit, to receive the delegates, 
and it is hoped that arrangements may be made for this 
event in the afternoon of May 26. On Friday evening, 
May 27, the delegates are invited to a reception by the 
University of London; and on the afternoon of May 28 it 
is proposed to pay visits to the Universities of Oxford and 
Cambridge. On Monday, May 30, the Lord Mayor of 
London will entertain the delegates at a banquet at the 
Mansion House. 
Lorp Avesury has been elected president of the Society of 
Antiquaries; and Sir Guilford L. Molesworth has been 
elected to succeed Sir William White as president of the 
Institution of Civil Engineers. 
A SUBCOMMITTEE has been appointed by the council of the 
Library Association to consider the question of the “ de- 
terioration of modern binding leathers,’’ and to suggest a 
remedy. A circular is being issued to the chief libraries 
in the United Kingdom with the view of ascertaining, 
among other matters, what effective support is likely to be 
forthcoming from librarians in favour of leathers of the 
standard specified by the Society of Arts’ committee. 
Tue Times correspondent at Rome announces that an 
archeological undertaking of an important character is 
about to be set on foot, namely, the complete excavation 
of Herculaneum. It is proposed that this vast work should 
be carried out by the cooperation of Italy with all civilised 
countries, and that there should be a central managing 
committee in Rome with national committees elsewhere. 
On Tuesday next, May 3, Mr. L. Fletcher, F.R.S., will 
deliver the first of three lectures at the Royal Institution 
on meteorites. The Friday evening discourse on May 6 
will be delivered by Dr. Chalmers Mitchell on anthropoid 
apes, and on May 20 by Prof. Rutherford on the radiation 
and emanation of radium. 
An International Engineering Congress, under the 
auspices of the American Society of Civil Engineers, will 
be held at the St. Louis Exposition during the week of 
October 3 to 8. The congress will be one of a series of 
international scientific congresses to be held at the ex- 
position under the general authority and with the cooper- 
ation of the Director of Congresses. 
On April 23 and 24 the Society of German Ironmasters 
celebrated at Diisseldorf the completion of the twenty-fifth 
year of its existence, and also of the twenty-fifth 
year of the presidency of Mr. Carl Lueg. ‘The society is 
in a very flourishing condition. It numbers 2957 members, 
and of its journal, Stahl-wnd-Eisen, every fortnight 4900 
copies are published. The meeting was well attended on 
both days, about eight hundred members being present. 
