30 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
Cabinet Minister said, in the House of Commons, that his 
colleagues should be excused for not having prevented the 
exportation of fat mto Germany, since it had only recently 
been discovered that glycerine, which is used for the manu- 
facture of explosives, could be obtained from lard ! | 
“In the whole history of the British Government there 
has been only one Cabinet Minister who was a trained pro- 
fessional man of science—the late Lord Playfair” (A). “Apart 
from a handful of University members, which imcludes Sir 
Joseph Larmor and Sir Philip Magnus as the sole representatives 
of the most neglected branch of human activities, there is not 
one scientific man in the roll of the House of Commons. In 
the House of Lords science is, mdeed, represented by two 
hereditary peers, Lord Rayleigh and Lord Berkeley; but 
there have been no scientific men called to the peerage since 
the deaths of Lord Kelvin, Lord Lister, and Lord Avebury. 
The esteem in which science is held may be measured by the 
suggestion in Lord Dunraven’s scheme for the reform of the 
House of Lords, that in the future it should consist of 400 
members, whereof two should represent art, literature and 
science’ (B). . 
“The Government has given a large sum for the establish- 
ment of a National Physical Laboratory, but the German 
Government gives three times as much, and the United States 
Government four times as much for their Corresponding 
National Institutions” (6). “The year before the War,” says 
Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, “Germany spent seven millions 
on aviation, largely, admittedly, in experiments, in order to 
get certain results... we had great difficulty in getting 
£500,000 for the same purpose.” The British Admiralty, 
he says, “up to a few days ago, was employing four or five 
people to try and solve a certain problem; a great American 
(A) Company is employing two hundred with the same object. 
A firm of German chemists acknowledges to spending approxi- 
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