42 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLI. No. 1045 



with Eussia, Holland, Austria and Belgium 

 to be added. Allowing $10,000,000 for 

 these, which is clearly very high, it makes 

 the absolute maximum production all over 

 the world substantially $100,000,000. 



The development of the coal-tar dye industry- 

 called for 8,062 German patents in the years 

 1876-1912 or 224 per year; corresponding patents 

 have been taien out in other countries, e. g., 2,432 

 in the United States. 



But it is authoritatively said that only 1 in 100 

 of the German patents is a money-maker, and as a 

 matter of fact, in the case of the 921 dyes in the 

 ■world markets at the end of 1912, only 485 XJ. S. 

 patents and 762 German patents vrere involved or 

 19.94 per cent, of the total V. S. and 9.46 per 

 cent, of the total G-erman patents. Of these 921 

 dyes 50 per cent, were never patented in the 

 United States, the U. S. patents on 26 per cent, 

 have now expired, leaving 24 per cent, still cov- 

 ered by existing U. S. patents and many of those 

 expiring in 1915. 



Broadly speaking, the entire coal-tar dye in- 

 dustry is a complicated maze and network of in- 

 terlocking and interlacing products and by-prod- 

 ucts; these are great in number but, in most cases, 

 small in volume individually. In numerous in- 

 stances the very existence of the by-products was 

 . the sole directing cause for the invention of new 

 dyes and classes of dyes. 



The average annual unit gross per year of the 

 900 coal-tar dyes, exclusive of alizarin and indigo, 

 all over the world outside of Germany has previ- 

 ously been shown to be about $41,000. Add to 

 this fact the interlocked and interlaced dependence 

 of intermediates and finished dyes, further that the 

 German works have long ago fully paid for their 

 plant, their experience and their sales organiza- 

 tion and the result is what seems to be a complete 

 answer why Germany controls the world's coal-tar 

 dye market. In fact, the whole industry, taking 

 fiverythiag into account, is just about a one-nation 

 business. It is a business made up of a large num- 

 ber of small units and all units essential to suc- 

 cess. 



Germany has this business established in 33 

 other countries; it is evident that any country 

 starting in now would be greatly handicapped 

 thereby if it attempted to enter the race for the 

 full distance. 



Although Germany has relied upon Great Britain 

 for its crudes, i. e., its benzol, its toluol, its naph- 



thalene and its anthracene up to the middle of the 

 '90 's, and perhaps later, yet England has not been 

 able to make any headway, but on the contrary has 

 always lost groimd. Many of these non-patented 

 world's dyes are also non-patented in England, yet 

 most of Great Britain's requirements of those ma- 

 terials have always been supplied by Germany. 



The answer to the question as to why Great 

 Britain has not succeeded against Germany can 

 not be that Great Britain is not a nation with 

 highly developed chemical industries. A German 

 chemist as well equipped as any other living man 

 to express an opinion and to compare German in- 

 dustries with British industries has said the fol- 

 lowing : 



' ' To be sure, we know that several of the Euro- 

 pean countries, e. g., England, are still ahead of us 

 in many branches of the chemical industry, espe- 

 cially in inorganic manufacture. But in no coun- 

 try on earth are those branches of the chemical 

 industry which demand versatility of thought, and 

 particularly a large body of scientifically trained 

 employees, so well developed as with us. Our syn- 

 thetic dye, synthetic drug, and perfumery indus- 

 tries are foremost throughout the world, and there 

 is probably no country in which the heads of fac- 

 tories are so imbued with the conviction that their 

 employees must needs cast a glance beyond do- 

 mestic boundaries. ' ' 



Each one of the large chemical manufacturing 

 countries of Europe, without exception, buys more 

 intermediate products from Germany than it sells 

 to Germany and all of the countries but one, 

 namely, Switzerland, buy more dyestuffs from 

 Germany than they sell to Germany. In other 

 words, and broadly speaking, all the rest of the 

 world, outside of Germany, merely assembles inter- 

 mediates purchased from Germany, into finished 

 dyes; Germany alone makes all its own intermedi- 

 ates; that is, Germany makes all the dye-parts 

 and the rest of the world assembles these dye-parts 

 into finished dyes. Needless to say, the one who 

 controls the manufacture of dye-parts actually 

 controls the manufacture of dyes. 



Where Austria, Belgium, Prance, Great Britain, 

 Italy, Eussia and Switzerland singly and com- 

 bined have failed, in spite of their large other 

 chemical industries, to take away this business 

 from Germany, the American chemist should not 

 be blamed nor found fault with because he has 

 not succeeded, nor should it be assumed that trans- 

 planting of the whole industry can be done at once 

 and is a perfectly easy thing to do, as so many 

 seem to think. The transplanting of that industry 



