626 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION G. 



by our jealousy of this progress of Germany. Perhaps you will consider it waste 

 of time to even allude to this matter; but I will take this opportunity of 

 pointing out that if there had been any truth concerning this jealousy, it would 

 have been the simplest thing in the world to shut Germany out of a large 

 number of markets in the British Empire, and that this would have been a very 

 much cheaper process than going to war. Our Colonies, which are now fighting 

 equally with ourselves against German aggression, made a very small difference 

 (5 per cent., for instance, in the case of New South Wales) in regard to the 

 introduction of German manufactures. I myself have somewhat close know- 

 ledge of two colonies, and I cannot help recalling the astonishment with which I 

 found in South Africa that, v/hen there was a huge scheme of electrification 

 effected, the enormous amount of material which Germany supplied was for what 

 the public mo.stly believed to be a purely British enterprise. I also have reason 

 to know that the supply of machinery to New South Wales from Krupp in some 

 cases exceeded by as much as ten times in amount the quantity supplied by 

 British firms. The prices were no higher, in spite of the 5 per cent, advantage 

 to this country. The delivery of the goods was on the one hand sometimes 

 inordinately delayed, though scrupulously punctual in delivery on the other. 



Now, when we look closely into the causes of Germany's great advance, 

 we can learn lessons which we have been culpably slow to take to heart. 

 Although there are other causes, first and foremost, and overshadowing all 

 others, the determined and whole-hearted organisation of German industry. 

 I see it recently stated that the scheme above referred to (the Victoria Falls 

 scheme) was lost to this country because the industrial banks of Germany 

 backed their own manufacturers, and this is no doubt partly true. As I have 

 ah'eady quoted, Germany's power in war is admitted to be her mechanical 

 organisation, and the organisation of every material and engineering force to 

 that end. Just as striking, if not more so, is her organisation for the arts 

 of peace, and I lately heard a very shrewd man of affairs express his amaze- 

 ment at Germany's entrance into war, when by peacefully pursuing the way she 

 was going she would have dominated the world commercially in a few years' 

 time, and, in the words of the speaker, might in many manufactures have made 

 us practically bankrupt. It is undoubtedly in the matter of scientific organisa- 

 tion even more than the organisation of science that Germany has achieved such 

 wonderful results, and it is therefore in this direction that we must leave no 

 stone unturned if we wish to have any chance of holding our own in the future. 

 I will indicate a few of the matters in which there is ample scope for doing 

 useful work in the above direction. 



Education. 



A sign of the times is the inclusion of an Education Section in an association 

 for the advancement of science. This has not been done on the narrow 

 ground of improving the teaching of science in schools, but because it is now 

 recognised, and this none too soon, that the whole problem of education must 

 be treated in a scientific manner. 



When the subject of engineering education is mentioned we are apt to think 

 only of the training of such engineers as have been considered in a recent 

 report issued by the Institution of Civil Engineers, and to exclude, as that 

 report purposely does, the training of our artisans and foremen. We certainly 

 do not connect the idea at all with the training of the artisan himself. As a 

 matter of fact, while high scientific training of the professional engineer and 

 manufacturer is of vital importance, the proper education of the men whom he 

 will have to control is scarcely less so. The latter education may not be of 

 the same kind, but it is just as vital to the country, and its present condition 

 is a serious evil. 



A well-known American, in the ' General Electric Review,' writing on the 

 ' individual and corporate development of industry,' points out that theoreti- 

 cally the aim of both employer and employee is the same, namely, the efficiency 

 of industrial production to increase the return of the investment in labour 

 and in capital. Unfortunately, however, as he remarks, ' the relations between 

 the two have frequently been hostile industrial warfare over the distributions 



