120 

same lesson in an article in the March Fort- 
nightly Review on “The War and British Indus- 
iry.” Mr.. Money comments that “we have been 
content to leave the development of many old 
industries and the establishment of many new 
industries. to foreign hands,” owing to our 
“normal” disregard of science. 
Let us not deceive ourselves into” believing that 
““science’’ or “‘chemistry”’ affects a limited number 
of subsidiary industries. There is no industry in the 
world, from building construction to coke-making, 
from artillery construction to the making of explo- 
sives, from dyeing to leather tanning . . . which has 
not been in recent years turned inside out by science 
and invention. We have been content in too many 
matters to let the world go by us. 
Even in the matter of preparation for war 
Mr. Money, quoting from the address de- 
livered before the Mathematical Association on 
January 9 by: Sir George Greenhill (see Nature, 
January 21, p. 573), gives a melancholy contrast 
between the conditions under which German and 
British artillery officers have been trained in their 
science at the Military Technical Academy of 
Berlin and at Woolwich. 
The neglect of science in industry and in public 
affairs, which is characteristic of this country, 
culminated in the prospectus of British Dyes 
(Limited), on the board of which science is entirely 
unrepresented. The opinions of Sir Henry Roscoe 
and Sir William Ramsay on the scheme, expressed 
in the columns of the Times, have already been 
given in Nature (March 11, p. 41), whilst Prof. 
Armstrong, in the Morning Post (March 13), con- 
siders that “our fate as makers of dyes is sealed.” 
The failure of the scheme to attract sufficient 
capital from investors to justify the directors of 
the company in proceeding to allotment was 
referred to last week (p. 94). A meeting of repre- 
sentatives of the textile and dyeing trades was 
held at Manchester on March 24 to consider the 
position, and a resolution was adopted in favour 
of proceeding with the company if certain modi- 
fications were made in the business part of the 
programme. There is no doubt as to the national 
necessity for such work as the. Government 
scheme is intended to promote, but to expect that 
a company without a single industrial chemist 
upon its board of directors will be able to com- 
pete with the highly organised coai-tar colour in- 
dustry of Germany is to show complete want of 
understanding of the scientific problems which 
must be faced if permanent success is to be 
assured. 
How little Germany fears competition in this 
field in the future from English manufacturers, 
even though aided by the resources of the State, 
can be gathered from an admirable article by Prof. 
O. N. Witt i in the Chemiker Zeitung for February 
13. In this article are given the real reasons why 
Germany has been able to outstrip all competition 
and to secure practically a monopoly, and why the 
foundations of the industry are so solidly based 
that the prospects of the British scheme havi ing 
NO. 2370, VOL. 95] 
NATURE 

[APRIL- I,. 1915 

anything like a permanent success seem altogether 
illusory. It must be remembered that the German 
chemical industry (with one or two exceptions) has 
never received any protection whatever from 
tariffs. How futile such protection as that 
afforded by patent laws can be in comparison 
with the results obtained by the organisation of 
science in the service of industry is emphasised by 
a report to Congress, which is reprinted in the 
Chemical News of March 5. In the United States 
a 30 per cent. duty on some coal-tar dyes for more 
than thirty years has not produced a real coal-tar 
dye industry. Germany, on the other hand, has 
succeeded because she has placed science on a 
sound business footing, of which the fair re- 
muneration of the scientific worker has been a 
striking feature. The part played by the German 
banks, often with men of considerable scientific 
attainments on their boards, in developing German 
industry is emphasised by Mr. W. P. Dreaper in 
an article on Industrial Research in the Financier 
of March 12. 
Germany, in short, has succeeded in the past 
because she deserved to succeed. Not only has she 
organised scientific effort on the manufacturing 
side, but she has organised equally effectively her 
commercial relations with foreign countries. This 
side of the question, which has played no small 
part in attaining the final result, is dealt with in 
the current Bulletin of the Société d’Encourage- 
ment (vol. cxxii., p. 33), by M. Lindet, who gives 
as an example an account of the methods adopted 
by Germany in Rumania. 
The Germans present to the Rumanians objects 
specially manufactured to satisfy the local require- 
ments, sold at a price which is lower than ours be- 
cause they are manufactured more cheaply and be- 
cause they bear lower charges for transport. The 
German and Austrian merchants and manufacturers 
interested in Rumanian business have formed a syndi- 
cate with its representative at Bucharest. They obtain 
in this way facilities for transport in common which 
we do not possess. They have at Bucharest banks 
which allow long-date credits, and they have repre-— 
sentatives and travellers who without intermission 
pursue their clients. They advertise widely, and have 
inaugurated at Bucharest a museum of their goods. 
It is an organisation of this kind, highly 
developed on both the manufacturing and com- 
mercial sides that we have to prepare to face in 
the future, after the war has ended and Germany 
is left free to resume her usual activities. 
DR. AL S.SEBARSE OR: Ss 
ae ranks of those who took part in founding 
the Cambridge Physiology School grows 
thin. But a few months ago we recorded the 
death of Dr. Gaskell. We have now to record 
the death, on March 23, of Dr. Arthur Sheridan 
Lea at sixty-one years of age. 
Lea entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 
1872, he became Foundation Scholar of the Col- 
lege, and in 1875 he took a First. Class in the 

