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profitable nature to the professor or research student, and those which are of a 

 purely scientific character. While it is only right that every successful research, 

 even if conducted at the expense of a public body, should bring solid return as 

 well as fame to the worker, some steps should be taken as to the fair and 

 equitable distribution of the proceeds. I see that one of the proposals of the 

 new Research Committee is that discoveries by institutions, associations, bodies 

 ar individuals in the course of researches aided by public money shall be ' made 

 available under proper conditions for the public advantage.' If the discovery is 

 patentable, I assume, it would be protected at home and abroad, unless we 

 wish to spend public funds as much for the benefit of foreign trade rivals as for 

 ourselves. This is one of the many matters in connection with which a British 

 Association Committee might from its cosmopolitan character render great 

 service. 



Standardisation and the Metric and Decimal System. 



One of the favourite jibes at this country is our supposed utter want of 

 system in regard to our standards and systems of measurement generally. With 

 regard, for instance, to the decimal system, it is frequently stated that thirty or 

 forty countries have adopted the metric system, while only three retain the inch 

 as a standard. It must be remembered, however, that the population and 

 wealth of the three latter are at least equal to, if not greater than, all the others, 

 though this does really not prove anything, except the difficulty of the subject, 

 and that there is a great deal to be said for both sides. In the Report of the 

 Decimal Association last April, the hope is expressed that one of the changes for 

 the better arising from the War will be a reform of our weights and measures. 

 No class of the community would be affected more closely than the engineer, and 

 engineers cannot fail to be interested in the question as to whether the general 

 and immediate adoption of the metric system would or would not be a valuable 

 means of assisting British firms in their competition with Germany and Austria, 

 in countries where that system is in vogue. Although it is very unlikely that a 

 wholesale change is imminent, it is certain that the metric system is gradually 

 spreading, and in the United States and Australia very strong forces are on 

 foot to bring about a change to that system. The British Association has over 

 and over again had the subject before it, and our Committee might be of service 

 in making a report on the present state of the matter. 



One thing is certain : the Committee might be of assistance in recommenda- 

 tions which would bring into line all British engineers in duplicating tenders for 

 countries which have the metric system. 



Coming to standardisation, here we have more ground for satisfaction. The 

 Standards Engineering Committee during the last ten years has done a work 

 which is quite equal to that in any other country, of completing standardisation 

 of all important matters in engineering, and, moreover, has secured the recogni- 

 tion of these standards in all public contracts. As giving some indication of the 

 range of this work it may be said that there are more than sixty committees 

 for dealing with every conceivable engineering matter, from bridges, ships, and 

 locomotives down to electric lamps. One of the last of these committees, 

 dealing with the automobiles, has eleven sub-committees, many of which have 

 already completed their work. It is almost impossible to do justice to the extra- 

 ordinary achievement of bringing order out of what was apparently hopeless 

 chaos and to the benefit of the British engineering indu.stry of this work, largely 

 due to the energetic secretary, Mr. Leslie Robertson. We may justly pride our- 

 selves that this Section was a pioneer of standardisation by taking up the 

 subject of small screws, its work being taken over ultimately by the Standardisa- 

 tion Committee. 



There is yet work to be done, however, and one matter of great importance 

 would be to get a universal standard of temperature for instruments of 

 measurement other than zero. A temperature, for instance, of about 62° Fahr. 

 would make steel rods' measures more practically workable than at present. 



In connection with the subject of temperature and standardisation, I 

 recently came across a statement by the General Secretary of the International 

 Electrotechnical Commission (' Journal,' January 191.5) that the want of 

 uniformity in the rating and testing of electrical machinery has been a serious 



