598 REPORT— 1901. 



salary and, having demonstrated his ability to tackle intricate problems, will be 

 consulted when difficulties arise. 



To give an example, a large firm of manufacturers in the north of England, 

 finding that certain of their comestibles products lost their colour on keeping, 

 instead of communicating with a firm of analysts, consulted an organic chemist, 

 who possessed little or no experience of commercial organic analysis, but whose 

 experiments and researches showed that he would consider the question with an 

 innate knowledge of the subject, unfettered by rule of thumb. The decision of the 

 manufacturers proved a wise one. 



The majority of young men engaged in organic research possess restricted 

 incomes — £100-150 shows a fair average — consequently the expense of materials 

 falls heavily on them. Such research frequently demands the use of large 

 quantities of dutiable articles — absolute ethyl and methyl alcohols, methyl iodide, 

 &c. Now the duty on alcohol is a consumption tax the objective of which is 

 tersely put in the following sentence from the oflicial Customs tariff, ' including 

 naphtha or methylic alcohol purified so as to be potable ' ; but it was certainly 

 never the wish of any administration to tax experimental science and the 

 industries which result from these experiments. 



A good instance of the absurd length to which the Customs authorities are 

 prepared to go appeared a few weeks since in the papers. A collection of 

 crustaceans preserved in spirit was sent from India to Mr. Beddard, the eminent 

 F.R.S. ; the Custom House wished to charge Mr. Beddard 2os. duty because the 

 spirit in which these crabs and crayfish Avere preserved had not been methylated, 

 and was consequently, vye can only suppose, considered potable. I am glad to say 

 the alcohol was poured away, and consequently the duty was not paid. 



The following figures from the Owens College Chemical Laboratory show the 

 amount of duty paid in the course of one year on methyl and ethyl alcohol alone : — 



Duty paid in 1896-7 



„ 1897-8 



„ „ 1898-9 



The duty represents about 2"]o times the original value of the alcohol. 



Practically the whole of the alcohol purchased by the laboratory used by three 

 or four chemists engaged in organic research : thus the ledger debits from 

 October to April 1900-01 three chemists with IK. 8.«., Ql. 18s., 5^. respectively for 

 alcohol ; we may therefore consider that these three chemists pay roughly 50/. a 

 year for alcohol, of which sum about 16/. 10s. is the actual value of the alcohol, 

 and the rest is made up by the duty. 



The distinct disadvantage at which the English chemist works, as compared to 

 his Continental colleagues, is shown by the following statement kindly supplied 

 by the Commercial Intelligence Department of the Board of Trade : — 



' So far as the information in the possession of this branch goes, there would 

 appear to be no free admission of alcohol from abroad for industrial purposes in 

 either of the countries ^ named. There are internal taxes in both countries from 

 which alcohol is, under certain circumstances, exempt; but it does not appear that 

 the exemptions affect the imported article, unless possibly in one instance, as will 

 appear later. 



' In France the internal tax of 220 fr. per hectolitre of pure alcohol is a 

 consumption tax from which alcohol vsed for industrial purposes is exempt, being 

 subject only to a statistical tax of 25 centimes i^er hectolitre of pure alcohol. 



' On imported articles, in which alcohol exists, the consumption tax is levied 

 (in addition to Customs duty) on the amount of pure alcohol which exists in a 

 state of simple mixture or chemical combination, and it is not absolutely clear 

 whether if such articles are to be used for industrial purposes they would be 

 exempt from this tax. The statistical tax on articles in which the alcohol has 

 been entirely transformed, eliminated, or. evaporated {e.g., ether), plus 80 centimes 

 per hectolitre, to compensate for the e.xpenses of surveillance, &c., incurred by 



' France [and'Germany. 



