PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 139 



The formation of a record of scientific graduates for special service ouglit not 

 to be difficult. The material already in great measure exists. Each University 

 and College has its roll of graduates or diploma holders, and with slightly more 

 detailed entries these rolls would give the record. Each graduate of a University 

 is kept track of through the necessity for keeping the electoral roll up to date, 

 and it ought to be possible to devise a means of maintaining touch with the 

 diploma holder. If each University or College were a local centre of the 

 Central Committee, the making of the roll of graduates would be achieved at the 

 different local headquarters, and would be a valuable supplement to the O.T.C. 

 work now undertaken so willingly, and done so well. The Government 

 machinery which manages the O.T.C. movement might control the keeping of 

 the register which I have suggested. 



I turn now^ to another side of scientific work during the war. It was my lot 

 to serve for nearly three years on the Inventions Panef of the Ministry of Muni- 

 tions, and as the result of that experience I venture to make some observations 

 on the utilisation of scientific knowledge and genius in the production of inven- 

 tions useful for the public service. We had an enormous multitude of inven- 

 tions to consider, and the Panel was divided into Committees for this purpose. 

 For each invention or proposal a file or dossier was prepared and most carefully 

 kept. There were also present at the meetings of the Panel very efficient officers 

 representing different branches of the service. Everything received careful 

 attention, and for the ability and fairness with which the initial examination 

 was made by the corps of examiners, and the precis of the invention presented, 

 I have great admiration. Much has been said about the inefficiency and the 

 mistakes of various Government Departments during the war. The Ministry 

 of Munitions Inventions Department was, so far as I could see, eminently well 

 managed. 



Many of the so-called inventions were not inventions at all. Some were not 

 at all new; in other cases an idea only was mooted. Could so-and-so not be 

 done? and so on, and the Department was supposed to be grateful for the 

 idea, and to do the rest, besides rewarding the proposer. A favourite notion, 

 which illustrates the diffusion of scientific knowledge among different classes 

 of people, was that of taking a magnet — any magnet — up on an aeroplane, and 

 using it to attract Zeppelins and other aircraft. Others suggested electro- 

 magnets fed by machines which would have involved carrying into the air on 

 an aeroplane a fully equipped power-house ! Another favourite idea, inspired, 

 no doubt, by a certain sensational type of article in the fiction magazines, was 

 that of rays charged in some way with electricity, or some other mysterious 

 agency, and therefore, intensely destructive! 



But there was a residuum of valuable invientions, which fully justified the 

 existence of the Department. These were recommended for further considera- 

 tion by the various departments of the services, or by General Headquarters. 

 It by no means followed that all that came to this stage received careful further 

 consideration. Everybody was very hard worked, and many were overdriven. 

 And it was by no means certain that when important approved appliances were 

 sent to G.H.Q. a thoroughly well-informed and capable officer would in all 

 cases have the duty of explaining and .showing their action. The absence of 

 such an officer, I am sure, often resulted in delay and serious error, and, I 

 fear, also in the rejection of what was in itself exceed-'ngly good, but was not 

 understood. People who knew nothing about the matter took charge, and ordered 

 things to be done v?hich brought disaster to the apparatus. I know of one ver)' 

 important machine which was ruined, with much resulting delay. A Brigadier- 

 or Maior-General, with a confidence born of blank ignorance, ordered a motor 

 generator to be put on town electric mains, and of course burnt it out. 



Then, again, we were told that G.H.Q. did not want this or that, and here, 

 as in all human affairs, mental inertia certainly okayed a considerable nart 

 The willingness, however, of some departments to adopt at once a rievice captured 

 from the enemy was pathetic. Often quite clumsv and relatively inferior con- 

 trivances were adopted in the midst of hesitation about our own. Anvthing 

 German of this sort some people assumed must be good — a foolish idea, the 

 resu'lt nf want of confidence, often well founded I am afraid, in their own 



