Fesruaky 18, 1897 | 
NATURE 
369 
provided which should do for the United Kingdom that which 
the Reichsanstalt did for Germany, and that which, so far as its 
inadequate endowment would allow, Kew had attempted to do 
for England. The third group of investigations which they 
wished to undertake was also carried out in the Reichsanstalt— 
namely, the systematic measurements on the physical properties 
of various bodies, which would hereafter be data of the greatest 
importance, both for science and industry. There was no pro- 
vision whatever for meeting this want in the United Kingdom. 
They thought the best plan would be to enlarge the Kew Obser- 
vatory so that the work carried on there might become more 
nearly equivalent to that undertaken at the Reichsanstalt. The 
government of the enlarged observatory might be in the hands 
of a committee appointed by the Royal Society, or a body like 
the visitors of the Greenwich Observatory, appointed by the 
principal societies which represented science and industry. They 
asked for some £30,000 for buildings, and £5000 per annum. 
Lord Rayleigh said the enormous sums which were being devoted 
in Germany in aid of science was a matter which was constantly 
being brought home to the scientific world; and he could not 
but feel that unless this country made some effort in the same 
direction there was very serious danger indeed that we might 
fall hopelessly in arrear. 
Sir Douglas Galton said the assistance they asked for was only 
a supplement tothe policy which the Government adopted a few 
years ago with the object of promoting technical education. 
Mr. J. Wolfe Barry said he felt very strongly that every 
branch of applied science was greatly in want of such help to its 
development as would be given by the establishment of a 
scientific laboratory of research. 
Sir Andrew Noble also supported the petition. 
Lord Salisbury, in reply, said:—I have listened with very 
great interest toa subject which certainly is not second in interest 
to any that I know of, and which has been developed by persons 
fitter than any others, probably, in this country to expound it. 
It differs in some respects from deputations that we often have 
to receive in that it hardly deals with any controverted matter. 
It is often the duty of a deputation to impress upon a Minister a 
policy of whose general expediency he is not entirely convinced, 
and the deputation may take a controversial form. No such 
development is possible in this case. We are all of us, as we all 
must be—anybody who has looked into the subject at all— 
heartily anxious for the attainment of the objects which you 
advocate so far as they are practicable. But, of course, such a 
question as you have laid before us to-day depends not for its 
acceptance upon those wide conceptions of public utility that 
you have explained; it rather depends upon the narrower 
issue of finance, for there is surely no Chancellor of the 
Exchequer in this country who, if he was _ possessed 
of a bottomless purse, would not send you out of 
the room with the concession of everything in this respect 
that you could desire. The question is as to the furnishing 
of the means. And there I am afraid I am not able 
to give you anything like a final or a conclusive answer. I had 
hoped that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have been 
here himself, but he has been forced to take the chair at a very 
important committee from which it was impossible for him to 
absent himself, and my courage is not equal to pledging him in 
his absence. I can only be quite certain that his sympathy is 
heartily with you, and that he would be very anxious to give 
such effect to the objects that you have in view as it is in his 
power to do. I do not think that the exertion which you require 
from him is quite of the limited kind which has been represented. 
Prof, Riicker was very moderate in his expressions, but he 
omitted some very important words in laying his estimate before 
you which he has printed in the document that he has circulated. 
He told you that the grant would be £30,000 for buildings, 
and £5000 a year. But what is said here? ‘‘It is thought that 
at first a grant of £30,000 for buildings and an annual grant of 
45000 a year might meet the more urgent necessities of the 
case.” Those are very terrible words to a Chancellor of the 
Exchequer. They hold out to him indefinite prospects of con- 
troversy, in which he himself is not made to play the most agree- 
able part. Imever was a Chancellor of the Exchequer, but I 
should imagine he would look upon a deputation of this kind, 
not only from the high philanthropic and patriotic point 
of view from which he desires to regard it, but also rather as 
a body of men employed in contriving instruments of torture 
for himself. 
NO. 1425, VOL. 55] 
Therefore, I must reserve anything I have to say i 
so far as the effect of those figures on his mind may go. But 
there is one consideration which pressed itself upon me when 
I read these papers, and still more when I was listening to the 
interesting speeches that we have heard, and that is, that the 
kind of security that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would 
probably want is not assurances of moderation upon your part, 
which, even if they bind yourselves, will not bind your suc- 
cessors ; but some limitation of scope and area in the kind ot 
assistance that you desire from him, which shall prevent, or 
which shall destroy, that vista of growing and unlimited ex- 
pense which a Chancellor of the Exchequer is apt to associate 
with all great national movements of this kind. I have known 
movements begin with very modest thousands, and end with 
millions at last. There is a distinction in the objects which you 
seek, on which I should think it was worth while for you to 
lay some emphasis. So far as you are inviting the Chancellor 
of the Exchequer to contribute to an institution for general 
research, though there can be no question of the value 
of your objects or of their importance to the public weal, yet 
you will readily admit that research into the secrets of nature 
affords a horizon to which there is no end or bound ; and he 
may well be startled at the commencement of a new chapter in 
the Estimates of whose closing periods he cannot form any con- 
ception, But there is one duty of the State which it has to per- 
form in every age, and which it ought to perform now and to 
perform in increasing ratio as the demands upon it are increased 
by the widening aspect of science—I mean, if I may use a very 
grotesque word, which has been very happily used before by the 
authors of this paper, that the duty of standardising is a duty 
which the State has always performed—it is nothing but a 
standard institution. Sir Douglas Galton observed that the 
stopping of adulteration was really nothing but another form of 
applying a standard; and so it is in weights and measures 
and many other respects; and part of what you ask is 
really standardising, is really to furnish good standards 
and to furnish a means of ascertaining that the instru- 
ments are adapted to those standards and bear a proper 
relation to them. If the more limited work of standardising 
was pressed upon the State and the more extensive portion of 
your work, which involves general and unlimited research, was 
reserved—for the present, at all events—to such assistance as 
you might get from private munificence, I think we should have 
more chance of making a satisfactory beginning. This is, how- 
ever, only a suggestion. I observed that all the speakers dwelt 
upon the enormous magnitude of the task that was before us, 
and I have no doubt they represented accurately not only the 
facts of the case, but the impression that was made on their own 
minds. But, still, [think in dwelling on those considerations they 
hardly displayed the wisdom of the serpent. It is not the magni- 
tude of the task on which it is desirable to lay stress ; it ison the 
importance of those portions of the task which lay immediately to 
your hand and on their germaneness to the duties which the State 
has always acknowledged and has hitherto to a great extent 
undertaken. In the hope that it may be found possible in the 
greatest possible measure to concede to you the objects which 
you have in view, but without attempting to pledge the bearer 
of the purse to the extent to which that purse would be opened, 
I have only to thank you heartily for your presence here to-day 
and for the very interesting speeches which I have heard. _ 
Lord Lister thanked the Prime Minister for his kind reception, 
and the interview then terminated. 
NOTES. 
TueE object of the strong and representative deputation which 
waited upon Lord Salisbury on Tuesday claims the support of 
all who are interested in the progress of science and industry. 
We reprint the Zmes report of what took place at this 
important meeting, and shall return to the subject next week. 
M. GarLior has been appointed sub-director of the Paris 
Observatory, in succession to M. Loewy, who is now Director. 
Dr. YERSIN, who is now in Bombay, inoculating against the 
plague, has been made an Officer of the Legion of Honour. 
