SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
subject should be regarded broadly. On the average science will pay 
liandsomely, but in individual cases no return will be forthcoming. 
Some problems will be tackled that will prove insolvable, or only capable 
of solution after years of patient study. It took the Germans over a 
quarter of a century to apply the stolen notes of an Englishman on the 
subject of aniline dyes to practical commercial purposes. Then having: 
déne so the profits of a single year more than repaid them for ‘thosé 
long and costly years which seemed to show a blank. Research work’ 
must be regarded on the average, not in detail. If that be done, and: 
if it is insisted that substantial returns be forthcoming for the annual 
outlay, then it does not matter what is spent. Indeed, the greater the 
investment the larger the dividend. Already the Institute has more 
thaif justified itself for several years to come as the result of the as 
it a done in standardising steel. 
There is one point that cannot be overestiinated, dna that is that 
& niggardly appropriation is worse than useless. Suitable buildings 
constructed and equipped on up-to-date lines, adequate material, and 
competent researchers are not to be had for nothing; and in this’ 
connexion, as in all others, the cheaper they are the nastier they are 
cértain to be. This does not mean extravagance; it means economy’ 
and efficiency. Too long has Australia been content with the second. 
bést, and has suffered egregiously in consequence. All that need be’ 
done is to see that good value is received for the money expended. 
Listen. to what that unchallengeable authority, Huxley, says :— 
Way weigh my words when I say that if the nation could purchase a potential’ 
Watt, or Davy, or Faraday, at the cost of a hundred thousand pounds down, he’ 
would be dirt- -cheap at the money. It is a mere Commonplace and everyday piece! 
of knowledge that what these men did has produced untold millions of wealth,’ 
in the narrowest economical sense of the word.” : 
Australia has potential Watts, potential Faradays, potential Huxleys.' 
Let us search round to discover them. In these modern days scientific: 
men for the most part are impotent without apparatus, without up-to- 
date libraries, in short, without their tools of trade. These must’ be 
put into their hands at whatever cost. fs 
fs 
Ae ee i Fr. M. G. 
260 
