May 20, 1915] 

NATURE 
aS) 

looking out and asking the question, ‘‘In what way 
can we utilise new inventions for the benefit of our 
own industry?’’ That forms No. 2 of the points of 
Sir William Ramsay. 
The third is that there is another agency always 
asking the question as to the cheaper production of 
the material, not in a passive way, but in an active 
way; in making inquiries and making voyages to 
other countries, examining what is done there and 
exploiting the brains of other men, often covering 
up the source. That is what the Germans call war. 
Then comes in the question of protection by the 
Government. There is a point where the Government 
could actively intervene to foster industry. Another 
point not less important is the protection of patents. 
In many cases Germans have gone so far as to steal 
the patent from other countries and protect themselves 
by patents from the other country recovering its ideas. 
Then there is the propaganda of the excellence of 
their own products, sending men throughout the 
world, speaking many languages, active missionaries 
of the active progress and greatness of Germany. I 
will cite several industries. The German spirit of 
organisation is so great that in the most unexpected 
fields it is exhibited. I remember one of the most 
prominent mathematicians, M. Picard, of the Institute, 
who said that though perhaps there had been great 
names in the history of French mathematics equal to 
those of the Germans, such as M. Poincaré, who I 
am proud to have called my friend, who recently died; 
yet the Germans had pushed their organisation so far 
that even in that field, so abstruse, they had perfected 
an organisation for that study. 
Take the question of aniline dyes, of which we have 
heard so much, and which has been the subject of 
consideration in this House. It is always said in 
this House, and in the public prints and text-books, 
that the story of aniline dyes is that a British chemist, 
Dr. Perkin, discovered and invented a new dye, and 
that was stolen by the Germans. The matter does 
not rest in such a passive way at all. Perkin was 
not, I believe, the first man to produce coloured mate- 
rial from the by-products of coal tar. That was done 
by Runge some years before. In 1856 Perkin pro- 
duced his first aniline dye, mauve, and that was con- 
sidered a great achievement in this country. Already 
the Germans were beginning that extraordinary 
organisation of which they are the masters. They 
seized hold of this, saw its possibilities, and set to work 
in all the laboratories of that great kingdom, parti- 
cularly Prussia, and soon produced a whole succession 
of aniline dyes. They opened up new possibilities, 
and in this way founded their industry in a perfectly 
legitimate manner. So that the lack in this country 
was first a want of appreciation of the value of that 
discovery, and then the want of active organisation 
to make use of the discovery when found. 
Or take, again, the case of glass, also raised by 
the President of the Board of Education. The manu- 
facture of glass, of course, has gone on from time 
immemorial. As a matter of fact, one of the oldest 
glass manufactories in the world was in what at that 
time was a Roman colony, Cologne. The most in- 
teresting development of the glass industry, however, 
was, perhaps, the manufacture of optical glass. It 
arose in this way : A German physicist of great ability, 
Abbe, noticed that a great deal of the finest micro- 
scopical work was robbed of its value by the difficulty 
of obtaining good optical glass, and so he turned 
directly away from his own study, sacrificed himself 
in a certain measure—that is to say, sacrificed his 
scientific ambitions—upon the altar of the industry 
of the Fatherland, and devoted his great talents to 
the study of glass in itself. Being a man of scientific 
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endowment, he speedily discovered what those who 
had been engaged in the industry before without 
scientific knowledge might not have discovered in a 
hundred years in reference to the manufacture of 
glass. Then came another point which has been 
raised earlier in the debate. After having reached a 
certain point, he found that it would be difficult for 
him to proceed without being sustained financially. 
He then appealed to the State. The German State 
was intelligent enough to foster his researches in 
every possible way, to pay him not merely for his 
chemical research, but for his endeavour to build up 
a great industry. So there you have a_ striking 
example of the alliance of science with industry, and 
of State aid supporting both, one which we might 
very well take to heart. The result was the building 
up of an industry which imposed itself upon the whole 
world, and is one of the legitimate glories of Germany 
to-day. Every medical student who wishes to do his 
work well is forced to buy a German microscope. 
Compare that with the condition of things in this 
country. I have come down to this House myself 
in those days when I was more hopeful and I had a 
real respect for the Government, and I have pleaded 
for 10,o00l. for great research work, research work 
which would have enabled one of the very few men in 
this country who stand out in the eyes of the whole 
world as a great figure in modern science, to do 
most useful work, and I was received with a certain 
polite indifference and shunted off. I say that, so 
far from asking 10,o0ol. for research work, I should 
have been entitled to ask for 10,000,000l.—that is to 
say, if I could ask with sufficient authority—to stimu- 
late in every possible direction the great industries of 
this country. I go so far as to say that eventually 
the whole civilisation of this world, and not merely 
of England itself, must turn on the axis of science, 
and as we advance we must give proportionately greater 
and greater importance to this great development of 
scientific life. When I wasastudentsome years ago of 
some of these questions, of which I have only given 
one or two examples out of hundreds which I could 
expound to the House, I made this extraordinary 
discovery, that in tracing out the development of 
science I was really in my own mind proceeding with 
the development of Humboldt’s cosmos. That is to 
say, that science is the roof of civilisation, and our 
civilisation is superior to that of the Greeks only in 
one particular, and that one particular is the advance 
in positive science. As a result of the advance of 
positive science our modern civilisation has reached 
that great expansion which we now recognise. 
Then the President spoke about the number of 
chemists in this country, and said that the number of 
research students in chemistry is only 350, and yet 
this country is competing in the commercial world 
with Germany! I have looked into the organisation 
in Germany, and I find this astonishing fact: That, 
in the great chemical works in Germany, for every 
fifteen men employed in any category whatever there 
is one highly trained specialist and chemist, and that 
this industry is so important that there is one highly 
trained specialist in chemistry for every forty-five 
employés in any category, right throughout the whole 
range of industry. When we reach facts lile these, 
are we astonished at the pacific invasion of Germany 
in every country in the world which, had they been 
sage enough, would in fifty years have given them a 
mastery of the world without the cruel and brutal and 
abominable war which has caused such suffering? 
But knowing the enormous disparity between one 
trained chemist for every forty-five employés in all 
industries, and a total of 350 research students in this 
country, how are these defects to be remedied? Partly 
