226 



NA TURE 



[August i 2, 1922 



Current Topics and Events. 



There appears to be solid ground for accepting 

 as an accomplished fact the arrangement which was 

 first rumoured in this country about a year ago. In 

 its annual report, the Compagnie Nationale des 

 Matieres Colorantes, the French equivalent of the 

 British Dyestuffs Corporation, declares that " all who 

 understand the complexity of the manufacture of 

 organic colouring matters will realise why we have 

 been compelled to acquire the patents, the processes, 

 and the technical aid of our principal foreign com- 

 petitors for exclusive use in France." This passage 

 has been taken by the French press as the official 

 description of an agreement between the Compagnie 

 Nationale and the Interessen Gemeinschaft, by which 

 detailed technical assistance and full information 

 regarding processes of manufacture shall be supplied 

 to the French factories by their German rivals, such 

 technical assistance taking the form of German 

 chemists to supervise operation of processes in the 

 French dye-works. In return for these advantages, 

 the consumption of French dyes would be limited to 

 France and her colonies, whilst the profits arising 

 therefrom would be shared by the Interessen Gemein- 

 schaft. Although a superficial view of this plan may 

 not be flattering to national amour propve, the arrange- 

 ment is an eminently practical one. The plain 

 English of it is that a fifty years' start cannot be 

 overtaken in fifty months. The Allies are agreed 

 in declining to trust Germany with a virtual mono- 

 poly in dyestuffs manufacture such as she enjoyed 

 before the war, in the first place owing to its military 

 potentialities, and secondly, though not less force- 

 fully, because a flourishing dyestuffs industry offers 

 the most powerful stimulus to encouragement of 

 national talent in the field of organic chemistry — a 

 branch of science which civilised countries cannot 

 afford to neglect. Consequentlv, it has appeared to 

 the French better to enlist the assistance of Germans 

 in building up a domestic industry than to incur the 

 terrible risks of not having any dyestuffs factories at 

 all. The course which they have chosen may perhaps, 

 in a somewhat modified form, suggest an avenue of 

 escape from British embarrassments in the same 

 industrial domain. 



A deputation from the People's League of Health, 

 which recently waited on the Parliamentary Secretary 

 to the Minister of Labour, in order to direct attention 

 to the effect of unemployment and the unemployment 

 insurance benefit on the health and habits of the 

 nation, referred inter alia to the subject of nutrition. 

 Sir Bruce Bruce-Porter said that the amounts paid 

 by way of unemployment benefit were insufficient 

 to keep the worker fit, that the latter was frequently 

 unversed in food values, and would be better able 

 to render good service when trade revived were he 

 able to obtain a standard balanced diet by means 

 of food tickets in part substitution for unemployment 

 benefit. This point is of considerable importance, 

 and although, as urged by the Parliamentary Secre- 

 tary, there are serious administrative difficulties in 



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the way of any such rationing scheme, we are of 

 opinion that it ought to be considered seriously. 

 The quantitative aspects of the problem of national 

 nutrition need much more attention ; we still have 

 very little exact knowledge of the requirements of 

 different classes of manual workers, and the founda- 

 tions laid during the crisis of the war have not been 

 built upon. We are glad to know that a strong 

 committee, under the chairmanship of Prof. E. P. 

 Cathcart, has been appointed by the Medical Research 

 Council to examine the whole subject, and if possible 

 undertake special research work. The food require- 

 ments of soldiers have been ascertained by exact 

 experiment ; the work of Cathcart and Orr in this 

 field has been of the greatest value. The application 

 of the experimental method to workers not under 

 military discipline is difficult, while inferences from 

 family budgets are frequently dangerous. However, 

 a combination of the experimental method, applied 

 to a relativelv small number of selected individuals, 

 and the statistical method of reducing budgets, will 

 almost certainly lead to a solution of the problem. 

 Similar remarks, of course, apply to the case of 

 institutional dietaries — a subject under the considera- 

 tion of a committee appointed by the Board of Control- 

 It is doubtful whether the diets approved by various 

 hospital and school committees are really based on 

 anv uniform scientific principles. 



From the Royal Institute of British Architects we 

 have received a notice of the preparations being 

 made to celebrate the bi-centenary of the death of 

 Sir Christopher Wren, who died on February 25, 1723, 

 at the age of ninety-one years. The Royal Academy, 

 the Royal Society, the British Museum, the London 

 County Council, and other important public bodies 

 are represented on the grand committee which has 

 been formed, and the proposal is to have a com- 

 memoration week, beginning on Monday, February 20, 

 1923. The programme includes a memorial service, 

 an exhibition, a pageant, and visits to Wren's build- 

 ings. Besides St. Paul's — the choir screen of which 

 bears the oft-quoted inscription, Si monumentum 

 requiris circumspice — Wren built about fifty City 

 churches, and to him are also due the library of 

 Trinity College, Cambridge, the Ashmolean Museum, 

 Oxford, and Greenwich Observatory. Had Wren's 

 career not been diverted to architecture, it is 

 probable he would have been among the greatest 

 scientific men of his age, such as Newton, Huygens, 

 and Leibnitz. As a youth at Oxford he displayed 

 remarkable ability, and gained the friendship of 

 Wilkins, Boyle, Seth Ward, and others. In 1657, at 

 tin- age of twenty-five, he succeeded Rooke as pro- 

 fessor of astronom}- in Gresham College, London, and 

 three years later returned to Oxford as Savilian 

 professor of astronomy. He was one of the founders 

 of the Royal Society, and was president in 16S0-S1. 

 Soon after being chosen Savilian professor he was 

 given the sinecure post of assistant surveyor-general 

 under Sir John Denham. The study of architecture, 



