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SECTION B.—CHEMISTRY. 
CHEMISTRY AND THE STATE. 
ADDRESS BY 
SIR ROBERT ROBERTSON, K.B.E., F.R.S., 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 
CONTENTS. 
PAGE 
Introduction . 5 f ; & Fy es : * <u oe 
Defence :— 
Explosives . ; : p 3 . ; é . + 54 
Chemical Warfare A , . . < : . 69 
Metallurgy . : : ‘ ; : : 2 : : Be (ne, 
Revenue 4 , : : " : : 5 : : . 64 
Health . . : ; : A : 2 ‘ ¢ : 69 
Agriculture . - : : - : : : : ; ae 
Other Activities . ‘ : . 4 t 2 f 3 Pink) 
Organised Applied Research . . : : : - : . 98 
Assisted General Research . i 5 - H f Fi . 8i 
Summary—before, during, and after the war . : : : . 82 
Introduction. 
Ir should be premised that in this account of the relationship of the State 
to chemistry in Great Britain, an attempt has been made to limit it to 
a description of the more or less direct assistance given by that science to 
various departments as they came into being or took form. Only in 
recent years, and as a result of the war, has there been a direct recognition 
of a corresponding obligation on the other side. 
It is obvious that it is to the universities, and, as was the case to a 
greater extent in the past, to private workers, that the great advances 
made by British chemists are due. Departmental requirements have, of 
course, reaped the advantage of these advances, but examples of important 
contributions to chemical knowledge emanating from the departments 
themselves are not lacking. The collected story of their connection with 
the activities of the State may be worth reciting, if it should show the 
development of its appeal to chemistry, and illustrate the gradual break- 
down of the view held by the chief of the tribunal before which Lavoisier 
came, that ‘ the State has no need for chemists.’ 
We will find that their employment in an official capacity was in the first 
instance in connection with the State’s pressing necessities, such as its 
- defence, the regulation of its currency, and the collection of its revenue, all 
of them subjects warranting the maintenance of equipment and staff. 
As the need for safeguarding the nation’s health, well-being, and the 
quality of its food supply became recognised, legislation followed, frequently 
