14 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



fuel, oils, and gas ; but in attempting this difficult task it has already, 

 by results unforeseen when the task was undertaken, shown at any rate 

 the possibility of economies for the State and for some of its major 

 industries which are well in excess of the cost of the research itself. 



There are parallels in many respects, as has been often pointed out 

 and as often forgotten, between the periods of our history following the 

 Napoleonic Wars and the Great War. The application of science in 

 industry and daily life received impetus in the earlier of these periods in 

 such directions as the introduction of steam motive-power ; it is receiving 

 it now, as it has been attempted here to show. The auspices now are more 

 favourable. Science is more powerful. Men more adequately and more 

 generally recognise its power, and therein should lie a certain ethical 

 value for it as offering a new point of view, in the manifold interest of 

 which all can share. Should not the application of science, for instance, 

 offer a new field for community of interest, not only between one industrial 

 organisation and another, but within the whole body of workers in any 

 single organisation ? But in order that the community may fully realise 

 all that it owes, and all that it might owe, to the advancement of science, 

 the channels of communication between research and the public mind 

 have to be kept clear, maintained and widened. The non-scientific public 

 is accustomed to view science as it might view a volcano ; prepared for 

 the eruption of some new discovery from time to time, but accepting the 

 effects of the eruption without realising the processes which led up to it 

 during the preceding period of quiescence. The period of preparation by 

 research before science can offer the world some new benefit maj' be long, 

 but the scientific machine is always running quietly in the laboratory. 

 There is an example ready to our hands. We recall the introduction of 

 wireless telegraphy and telephony as a scientific gift of quite recent years. 

 Do we all realise that it was here in Oxford, at the Meeting of the British 

 Association so long ago as 1894, that the first public demonstration of 

 wireless signaling by means of electro-magnetic waves was given by Sir 

 Oliver Lodge ? It was the work of science to develop the methods then 

 demonstrated until they have been brought to their present marvellous 

 uses. On the other hand it is often the case, whether in industrial or agri- 

 cultural, domestic or whatever application, that science has knowledge at 

 command, awaiting use, long before mankind can be brought actually to 

 apply it. Though we have quickened, we are not yet so quick in the uptake 

 of the results of applied scientific research as, for instance, some of our 

 commercial competitors. The public support of scientific research, upon 



