SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
ere a 
Great Britain, the United States, France, Italy, and Japan, did not 
haggle at the cost which the expansion of their pre-war facilities 
for research involved. They drew a clear line between retrench- 
ment and economy. Savings are being effected in many directions, but 
in these countries larger sums are now being spent than formerly upon 
laboratories and upon scientific investigation. The one and only-reason 
for this fresh stimulation and expansion of activity is that in the 
industrial arena economies must be effected, production must be increased, 
and efficiency must be promoted. So striking and incontestable were 
the achievements of science during the war that even the “ practical ” 
business man was constrained to modify his attitude toward the “blue 
spectacled” professor, and there is now very little opposition to the 
employment of the ablest scientific men available in the service of the 
State. -. 
In Great Britain there are no lingering doubts: about the usefulness 
of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. The latest 
Report of the British Advisory Council has fully confirmed the promise 
of rich results contained in earlier records. The creation of this insti- 
tution was a war provision, and it performed such valuable service in® 
connexion with special inquiries for defence purposes, notably the anti- 
submarine campaign, that its permanent establishment for purposes of 
peace problems was a natural and necessary step. 
The work of the Department is partly direct, and partly indirect. 
In matters of purely national concern involving large and general 
questions, special branches of inquiry are instituted, whilst in matters 
of sectional industry co-operation is extended and encouragement is 
given to the prosecution of scientific research. Direct influence is 
exerted through such bodies as the National Physical Laboratory, the 
Fuel Research Board, the Food Investigation Board, and many others. 
The problems which these various bodies are undertaking are so: far- 
reaching that even a partial solution of the difficulties they hold would 
result in enormous savings. The field of usefulness of the Fuel Research 
Board is practically illimitable. Various estimates have been compiled 
showing the monetary loss due to the prevailing methods of the utiliza- 
tion of coal in Great Britain. The figure has been set down by some 
authorities at £200,000,000 per annum, due to the waste of by-products 
and of heat. The importance of this inquiry lies in the fact that 
coal as a raw material is of service not in one industry but in all. 
The late Professor Jevons, in 1863, foretold serious injury to the 
trade of Great Britain from the rise of prices incidental to the working 
of coal, and the position has now arisen owing to competition against 
the lower price of coal in the United States, and against its more 
economic use in Germany, that serious heed must be taken of the future. 
450 
