8 REPORT— 1903. 



eyes to the fact that, so far as we can predict anything of the twentieth 

 century on which we have now entered, it is that it will be one of acutest 

 international conflict in point of trade. We were the first nation of the 

 modern world to discover that trade was an absolute necessity. For that 

 we were nicknamed a nation of shopkeepers ; but now every nation 

 wishes to be a nation of shopkeepers too, and I am bound to say that 

 when we look at the character of some of these nations, and when we look 

 at the intelligence of their preparations, we may well feel that it behoves 

 us not to fear, but to gird up our loins in preparation for what is before us.' 



Mr. Chamberlain's views were stated in the following words : — 



' I do not think it is necessary for me to say anything as to the urgency 

 and necessity of scientific training. ... It is not too much to say that 

 the existence of this country, as the great commercial nation, depends 

 upon it. . . . It depends very much upon what we are doing now, at the 

 beginning of the twentieth century, whether at its end we shall continue 

 to maintain our supremacy or even equality with our great commercial 

 and manufacturing rivals.' 



All this refers to our industries. We are suff"ering because trade no 

 longer follows the flag as in the old chiys, but because trade follows the 

 brains, and our manufacturers are too a.pt to be careless in securing them. 

 In one chemical establishment in Germany 400 doctors of science, the 

 best the Universities there can turn out, have been employed at different 

 times in late years. In the United States the most successful students in 

 the higher teaching centres are snapped up the moment they have finished 

 their course of training, and put into charge of large concerns, so that the 

 idea has got abroad that youth is the password of success in American 

 industry. It has been forgotten that the latest product of the highest 

 scientific education must necessarily be young, and that it is the training 

 and not the age which determines his employment. In Britain, on the 

 other hand, apprentices who can pay high premiums are too often pre- 

 ferred to those who are well educated, and the old rule-of-thumb 

 processes are preferred to new developments — a conservatism too often 

 depending upon the master's own want of knowledge. 



I should not be doing my duty if I did not point out that the defeat of 

 our industries one after another, concerning which both Lord Rosebery 

 and Mr. Chamberlain express their anxiety, is by no means the only thing 

 we have to consider. The matter is not one which concerns our industrial 

 classes only, for knowledge must be pursued for its own sake ; and since 

 the full life of a nation with a constantly increasing complexity, not only 

 of industrial, but of high national aims, depends upon the universal 

 presence of the scientific spirit— in other words, brain-power — our whole 

 national life is involved. 



