THE COAL-TAE INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND AND GERMANY. 261 



in England at the present day, at a time when even the German trade is 

 suffering from the general depression, looks worse than at any previous 

 period ? During years of stagnation in this country the German manu- 

 facturers have been realising large profits, which they have employed in 

 consolidating their businesses, writing off the value of their buildings and 

 plant, and accumulating enormous reserves (the reserve of the Badische 

 Company is over a million pounds) : they have gathered round them 

 perfectly working organisations, comprising enormous staffs of scientifically 

 and practically trained research chemists, factory chemists with highly 

 specialised knowledge, chemical engineers, dyers, and others ; their 

 travellers and agents are in every part of the globe ; by long manufactur- 

 ing experience and unremitting endeavour to improve their processes and 

 plant they have brought the yields and quality o? their products to such 

 a state of perfection that even when the manufacture of these products 

 is no longer covered by patents they are able to produce them at a cost 

 price which is impossible to anyone commencing their manufacture ; 

 they have hedged themselves about with a perfect stockade of many 

 hundreds of patents, have accumulated in their laboratories thousands 

 of intermediate products ready at any time to be subjected to any new 

 treatment or combination which research or theory may suggest as 

 likely to yield new results. By the complete range of colours which 

 they are able to offer in each group of dyestuffs, whether basic colours, 

 acid colours for wool, fast colours dyeing on metallic mordants, diazotis- 

 able colours, or direct colours for cotton, and by the invaluable aid and 

 assistance which they can give the dyer in his daily work, they are 

 enabled to retain his custom even if it sometimes happens that a better 

 and a cheaper article is offered him by the home producer. 



Where, then, are we to look for an improvement ? Some would find 

 a remedy in the imposition of heavy protective tariffs ; but such tariffs in 

 France have not availed to prevent a similar state of things there, and 

 protection in colouring matters might have a very detrimental effect upon 

 the textile industries of the country. Others expect salvation from the 

 extension of technical schools ; but laudable as is the aim of these institu- 

 tions, I cannot see how they can effect much vmtil their raw material is of 

 a very different character from what it is at present, and until the public 

 can be completely disabused of the fallacy that a year or two of technical 

 training pumped into an ignorant schoolboy will produce a better works 

 chemist than a university course of scientific study laid upon the founda- 

 tion of a good general education. Mr. Levinstein again bases his hopes 

 for the future upon a reform of the patent laws, and seeks to compel all 

 patented processes to be worked in this country. Although I am inclined 

 to believe that a portion of our present troubles have been brought about 

 by a bad patent law, framed mainly from an engineering and not from a 

 chemical point of view, which seems specially designed to foster foreign 

 trade at our own expense, yet I cannot attribute to this cause a too 

 preponderating influence, and am doubtful whether its removal now 

 would materially improve the position. The remedy for the present state 

 of affairs must of necessity be a slow one, and in my opinion can only be 

 found in a better appreciation of the value of science thi-oughout the 

 length and breadth of the land. Until our Government and public men 

 can be brought to realise the importance of fostei'ing the study of science 

 and of encouraging all scientific industries, until our schools and universi- 

 ties appreciate the importance of a scientific education, until the rewards 



