APRIL 29, 1915 | 
NATURE 
245 


and military skili of our Army, the magnificent work 
of the Navy, and the resource of the Government in 
meeting extraordinary emergencies. As engineers, we 
know that our dockyards, arsenals, and armament 
firms are great schools of technology where the utmost 
resources of science and experience have been utilised. 
Victory, if we reach it, as we confidently trust we 
shall, will largely be the result of the general progress 
in mechanical engineering and in the capacity of our 
factories and workshops, due to the concurrent exer- 
tions of all engineers, civilian and military. 
In this war the question of transport for troops, 
for munitions, and for food has assumed an import- 
ance never experienced before. It is only by the use 
of every mechanical appliance that a war on the scale 
of the present one is possible. Conveyance of food, 
munitions, and troops beyond railheads to the nearest 
possible point to the firing line depends almost exclu- 
sively on motor traction. The vehicles comprise 
columns of motor-lorries, box-cars, motor-ambulances, 
motor-omnibuses for troops, motor-cars for officers, 
steam-tractors for guns and travelling kitchens. It 
has been necessary to provide large stores of spares 
and well-furnished repair shops. 
I think we may regard the conveyance of the Ex- 
peditionary Force as a triumph of organisation. A 
committee of railway managers,. formed before the 
war, had studied the necessary arrangements. Three 
hundred and fifty trains were at work, and _ they 
arrived at Southampton from all parts of the country, 
between dusk and dawn, at twelve-minute intervals, 
during ten days. The troops and their heavy equip- 
ment were detrained and embarked without a hitch, 
and, guarded by the Navy, were transported to 
Boulogne without molestation. 
As engineers, we may recall with pride the words of 
Mr. Churchill in regard to the ships at the Falkland 
Islands battle and the cruiser raid. He pointed out 
that ‘all of a sudden the greatest trial was demanded 
of the engines, and they excelled all previous peace 
time efforts. Can you conceive,” he said, ‘‘a more 
remarkable proof of the excellence of British 
machinery, of the glorious industry of the engine- 
room branch, or of the admirable system of repairs 
and refits by which the Grand Fleet is maintained 
without exhaustion?’ In this connection I should 
like to refer to the reform effected by Lord Fisher, 
conferring military rank upon the old entry engineers 
of the Royal Navy. Hitherto, in spite of their in- 
valuable service and the risks they ran, they were 
rated as civilians. Lord Fisher said that ‘tthe un- 
approached efficiency of the engineers in the Navy 
merited this tardy recognition of their all-important 
part in the splendid fighting condition of our whole 
Fleet.” 
If in this war the work of the mechanical engineer 
has assumed a new importance, if success depends on 
an enormous supply of munitions, if, as Mr. Lloyd 
George said, ‘‘the turning out of munitions of war not 
merely means success, but means the saving of lives,” 
then a great responsibility is placed on the shoulders 
of engineers. They are called on for the utmost exer- 
tions and perhaps for more sacrifices than others, 
except those at the front. 
Foreign Competition.—Nevertheless a retrospect of 
our methods and activities is not entirely favourable. 
Fas est et ab hoste doceri, and it is no condonation 
of the military crime of Germany to recognise that the 
enormously rapid industrial advance in that country 
has serious lessons for us. Consider these facts. In 
sixteen years the aggregate income of Prussia has 
nearly doubled. While our Mercantile Marine in- 
creased from g to to million tons, that of Germany 
increased from 1 to 24 million tons. In 1870 Germany 
had seven shipyards employing 3000 hands; in 1900 
NO. 2374, VOL. 95] 

she had thirty-nine shipyards employing 40,000 hands. 
Although Germany has on the whole poorer qualities 
of iron ore and coal, her production of pig-iron in- 
creased from 11 to 19 million tons annually, while ours 
increased only from g to 11 million tons. To-day her 
production of steel is nearly twice as great as ours. 
Various artificial conditions have tostered German 
trade, some of which might, and others could not, be 
imitated with advantage. The German Government 
is poorer than ours, but it has much more clearly 
recognised the interdependence of science and industry, 
and the duty of the State to assist industry in matters 
beyond private initiative. It has spent very much 
more in providing the highest type of technical instruc- 
tion and State research laboratories. The railways 
and canals being under State control, differential rates 
can be adopted to help traders. The banks, advised 
by a staff of scientific, legal, and commercial experts, 
have been ready to promote the trial of inventions, 
and to subsidise promising but necessarily speculative 
industrial undertakings on a scale unknown in this 
country. Amongst other influences which have ad- 
versely affected our manufacturers may be reckoned 
some perversities of the Patent Law. Hence it has 
come about that, since the war began, we find our- 
selves in want of important products we can no longer 
obtain, and we realise that Germany fights not only 
with her army, but with her science and industry. 
The most striking examples of the plight to which 
we have been reduced are found in the chemical indus- 
tries, which, however, involve a good deal of mechan- 
ical engineering. | Aniline mauve was discovered in 
this country in 1856, but the Germans, and to a certain 
extent the Swiss, have practically captured the whole 
colour industry. Prof. Meldola stated that, in 1886, 
nine-tenths of the dyeing colours used in this country 
came from Germany. Yet these are essential to tex- 
tile industries having an annual output of 200,000,000l., 
employing 1,500,000 workers. The production of syn- 
thetic indigo in Germany has largely destroyed the 
cultivation of natural indigo in India. The value of 
imported indigo from India in 1895 was about 
3,500,000. At the present time it is about 70,000. 
Baeyer discovered synthetic indigo in 1880, but nearly 
twenty years were employed in research and nearly a 
million pounds was spent before commercial synthetic 
indigo was placed on the market. That is immensely 
creditable to German faith in science. Before the war 
the world’s demand for electrical porcelain was prac- 
tically met by Germany alone. There are many other 
similar cases. In these industries Germany had no 
natural advantages, but only a greater scientific in- 
telligence and greater confidence of financiers in sup- 
porting scientific advisers. 
To take another instance of more interest to 
engineers. Germany has acquired a practical mono- 
poly of the treatment of the complex ores of the baser 
metals. The whole of the ores of zinc, lead, and silver 
from the mines of Australia, the richest in the world, 
are under contract sent to Germany for reduction. The 
Australian Attorney-General stated that ‘‘German in- 
fluence exercised a monopoly over the world’s base 
metal industry, so complete that it excluded effective 
competition.” 
Happily, in the iron and steel industries we are in 
a better relative position. Metallurgists here and in 
Germany, Belgium, and the United States have 
learned much from each other, and we have no reason 
for dissatisfaction with our part in the progress made. 
We had a long lead, and the discoveries of Bessemer, 
Mushet, William Siemens, Thomas, and Gilchrist, and 
others kept us in the front rank. We have been out- 
paced in volume of production, but in the higher 
qualities of steel and steel alloys, both in investigation 
and the quality of our product, we still hold a lead. 
