CHEMISTRY AND NATIONAL PROSPERITY 3 



rise to a widespread belief that the science of 

 Chemistry is largely responsible for the accentuation 

 of the horrors associated with war. This belief 

 is a mistaken one and arises from a failure to 

 comprehend the part played by Chemistry in 

 developing the resources and promoting the pros- 

 perity of any great modern nation. A flourishing 

 chemical industry is a perpetual source of wealth 

 to a country and the prime fount of countless 

 ameliorations of the conditions of life ameliora- 

 tions which cannot be permanently confined to 

 the nation from which they spring. But, in 

 accordance with a natural law, so potent an agent 

 for good becomes a powerful weapon in war, and 

 the unfair use of the weapon cannot be charged 

 against the specialist who devised the tool for some 

 peaceful purpose. Signs are, indeed, not wanting 

 which indicate that science has little to do with 

 the control of German policy and methods. It 

 is impossible to believe, for instance, that any 

 scientific man ever suggested that the Flammen- 

 werfer could possess any efficiency as a military 

 weapon; it is, however, easy to visualise the 

 chemical engineer producing such an archaic im- 

 plement at the bidding of a non-scientific chief. 

 German primary and secondary education is more 

 intensely classical and literary than is British; 

 its products naturally tend towards such an in- 

 herently false and proportionless outlook on life, 

 affairs, and things as has been repeatedly exhibited 



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