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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1090 



War and after the War." Thougli the address 

 was an introductory lecture at University Col- 

 lege, London, and was open to the public with- 

 out fee or ticket, only the briefest mention of 

 it appeared in the periodical press, and the 

 points of national importance dealt with in it 

 were unrecorded, except in our columns, in 

 which it was oux privilege to publish the ad- 

 dress almost in full. We understand, of 

 course, that the demands made upon the space 

 available in the daily papers are many and 

 insistent, yet we should have supposed that 

 during the progress of a war in which victory 

 will depend as much upon science and ma- 

 chinery as upon men, a summary of some of 

 the points made by a leading authority upon 

 applied science would be of greater public in- 

 terest and importance than much of the un- 

 substantial chatter with which we are supplied 

 daily. 



In the course of his address. Professor 

 Fleming himself supplied a reason for the 

 neglect of scientific aspects of national affairs, 

 in comparison with the attention given to the 

 superficial views of politicians and other 

 publicists. While success in science is meas- 

 ured solely by discovery of facts or relation- 

 ships, in politics and public life generally it is 

 secured by fluent speech and facile pen. In 

 scientific work attention must be concentrated 

 upon material fact, but the politician and the 

 writer attach greater importance to persuasive 

 words and phrases, and by their oratory or 

 literary style are able to exert an influence 

 upon public affairs altogether out of propor- 

 tion to their position as determined by true 

 standards of national value. Power, as regards 

 government of the affairs of the nation, does 

 not come from knowledge, but from dialectics : 

 it is the lawyer who rules, with mind obsessed 

 by the virtues of precedent and expediency, 

 and to him men of science and inventors are 

 but hewers of wood and drawers of water. 



Under a democratic constitution it is per- 

 haps too much to expect that Parliament wiU 

 pay much attention to scientific men or meth- 

 ods; yet, as was shown in the debate upon the 

 scheme for the institution of an advisory 



council of scientific and industrial research 

 last May, the members of the House of Com- 

 mons are ready to support plans for bringing 

 science in closer connection with industry. 

 The monies provided by Parliament for this 

 purpose are to be under the control of a com- 

 mittee of the Privy Council, which will be 

 advised by a council constituted of scientific 

 and industrial experts. The scheme was con- 

 ceived rightly enough, but when it passed into 

 the hands of officials of the Board of Educa- 

 tion much of its early promise was lost. 

 Most people would regard it as essential that 

 the executive officers of a council concerned 

 with the promotion of industrial research 

 should know what is done in this direction in 

 other countries, and have sufficient knowledge 

 of science and industry to formulate profitable 

 schemes of work. The success of such a body 

 depends largely upon the initiative of the 

 secretary; and in an active and effective coun- 

 cil we should expect him to be selected because 

 of close acquaintance with problems of indus- 

 trial development along scientific lines. But 

 what is the position in this case ? The schemie 

 is issued by the president of the Board of 

 Education, Mr. Arthur Henderson, a labor 

 member, who owes his post entirely to polit- 

 ical exigencies, the secretary of the committee 

 of the privy council is the secretary of the 

 board, Sir Amherst Selby-Bigge, whose ami- 

 ability is above reproach, but who knows no 

 more of practical science and technology than 

 a schoolboy, and the secretary of the advisory 

 council is Dr. H. E. Heath, whose interests are 

 similarly in other fields than those of science. 

 The belief that the expert — whether scien- 

 tific or industrial — ^has to be controlled or 

 guided by permanent officials having no spe- 

 cial knowledge of the particular subject in 

 hand is typical of our executive system. While 

 such a state of things exists, most of the ad- 

 vantages of enlisting men of science for na- 

 tional services must remain unfulfilled. The 

 various scientific committees which have been 

 appointed recently have, we believe, been able 

 to give valuable aid in connection with prob- 

 lems submitted to them, but they would be far 

 more effective if the chiefs of the departments 



