420 

administration that is so completely the need of 
the hour. 
The intention of the Minister has been pretty 
clearly expressed. Production is to be speeded 
up by using at first the most perfectly equipped 
shops, and by drawing labour and machines from 
those less fully qualified to undertake the work. 
It is to be hoped that an effort will be made 
to work three shifts in the twenty-four hours. 
There seems to be no reason why the students in 
the scientific and technological faculties of the 
universities and older boys in public schools 
should not be mobilised for this purpose. The 
greater number of jobs are carried out on auto- 
matic machines, the control of which can be 
learnt in a fortnight or less. The main object, 
however, is that the most efficient and economical 
methods of production must be adopted; the small 
shop, therefore, must stand out; and the individual 
must express his patriotism in co-operative effort. 
Not a great deal of consolation is to be derived 
from the administration of local committees con- 
stituted by a careful balancing of interests and 
“municipalised” by the presence of the chief 
magistrate. If the local employers, managers, or 
foremen are giving the most effective service in 
their own works they will have little time for 
attending committees. A committee is as effective 
in affording opportunity for personal differences 
as it is for securing unanimity as to method and 
aim. The more bodies are used in an 
advisory, and the less they are used in an execu- 
tive capacity, the happier will be the result of 
their efforts. For getting things done one auto- 
crat is worth twenty committees, provided that 
he has common sense and is neither a politician 
nor a lawyer who regulates action by precedent. 
The work of organising our scientific and 
technical forces should not be put into the hands 
of men whose knowledge is limited to the ety- 
mological derivation of the names of things re- 
quired——at least not in time of war, and it is 
imperative to consider whether the real resources 
of technically trained men have been tapped. A 
great many have entered the army and have been 
drafted into regiments where their specialised 
knowledge is of little use. Even then the fact 
that they can write has resulted in their being 
burdened with clerical work, which could as easily 
be done by women. But there are many men who 
for more or less adequate reasons are not in 
uniform and are only awaiting the call to indus- 
trial service. In comparison with previous wars 
the present conflict is not a war of men so much 
NO. 2381, VOL, 95] 
such 
NATURE 

[JUNE 17, 1915 

as a war of guns and ammunition, and if we are 
to hasten that end whicl: we believe to be inevit- 
able, we must concentrate every element of 
scientific knowledge and technical skill into its 
prosecution. 
Scientific discovery, mechanical invention, and 
a highly technical organisation as employed by the 
Germans are only to be beaten by similar forces 
arrayed against them. It is not a time to say 
what ought to have been in the past, but what 
should be now and in the immediate future. We 
know that up to a certain point the scientific 
resources of the country have been drawn upon, 
but beyond the fact that one man is working at 
explosives, another at the Royal Aircraft Factory, 
and a third is testing for the Admiralty, we want 
to feel that these are only details of a wider 
schenie so perfect in its organisation that the full 
effect of our forty-five millions of people is brought 
to bear upon the enemy. Many people would 
sleep more peacefully if they knew that every 
technically trained man in the universities, uni- 
versity colleges, technical institutions, and in 
the Government Departments was not doing his 
“business as usual,” but making it his special 
business to provide the nation with the scientific 
material and machinery by which alone can our 
forces achieve success in the present conflict. 

MODERN ELECTRICAL THEORY. 
The Electron Theory of Matter. By Prof. O. W. 
Richardson. Pp. vi+612. (Cambridge: At 
the University Press, 1914.) Price 18s. net. 
HIS book is based on a series of lectures 
delivered by Prof. Richardson at the 
University of Princeton, and gives a general 
survey of the electron theory. The book starts 
with an account of ‘the elementary  prin- 
ciples of the theory of electricity and mag- 
netism, and a discussion of phenomena which 
can be explained on the general Maxwell theory. 
From this we are gradually led to the discussion 
of such phenomena as dispersion and selective 
absorption, which have first found satisfactory 
explanations on the electron theory. Next follows 
a closer account of the theory of the mechanics 
of electrons, containing detailed considerations of 
the problems of electromagnetic mass, the radia- 
tion from an accelerated electron, and the proper- 
ties of moving systems. This part ends with a 
brief account of the principles of the theory of 
relativity. After this we return again to the con- 
sideration of the general properties of matter, and 
the results deduced in the preceding chapters are 

