SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
usually be feasible for both producers and users to combine in a single associa- 
tion unless, as in the case ot cotton, the producers and users are so intimately 
related that the processes of each immediately affect the whole business of the 
other. The various non-ferrous metal trades can combine without difficulty. 
The different branches of the internal-combustion engine trade cannot. The 
problems of the aeroplane engine and the heavy Diesel motor are at present too 
remote from each other. 
The second point is that the scheme contemplates the establishment of one 
association of each kind for the whole United Kingdom—not a series of local 
associations. Experience has shown that a number of local associations in the 
same industry would raise questions which would inevitably lead to Government 
interference, and that the number of competent research workers, and especially 
men fitted to be directors, is far too small to allow of this procedure. A single 
national association avoids this danger, and has the important advantage of 
commanding larger resources as well as wider experience. On the other hand, 
where an industry is widely distributed over the three kingdoms, provision is 
made for local branches and committees with large scientific autonomy, so as 
to allow the research undertaken to correspond with the variety of problems 
arising from local differénces in material, or processes, or types of product. 
THE ORGANIZATION OF NATIONAL RESEARCH. 
We may now turn to the third section of the field which I have spoken of as 
the Organization of National Research. You will have noticed that all the 
work already described is national in a sense, but it is work which the Advisory 
Council realized the Department had better delegate to authorities, not itself. 
There remains a growing body of work which, for one reason or another, the 
Government must do itself, and this is what is meant by the phrase “ National 
Research.” The work in question may be divided into three sub-heads. Here, 
again, it will be seen that, leaving aside the function of intelligence, which is a 
matter of orderly collection, collation, and distribution by competent. officers 
acting in general conformity with the directions of the Advisory Council itself, 
the policy is one of delegation to persons specially qualified by their knowledge 
and experience to do the work in hand, with great freedom to initiate and carry 
out a scheme of work which they themselves have devised. 
I—A CLEARING-HOUSE OF INFORMATION. 
I have always referred incidentally to the function of the Department as a 
elearing-house of information for the Industrial Research Associations. It 
similarly acts as a clearing-house for all the research organizations and workers 
with which it is officially connected. But it confines itself to this. The 
workers of the research associations, the research boards, and research com- 
mittees working officially under the Department, will often be doing confidential 
work of great interest and importance to each other, and if there is not 
some central clearing-house, the rate of advance will be much slower than 
it need be. This service the Department is undertaking, and it is likely, 
even when thus narrowly defined, to be a fairly big business. Moreover, the 
Department is slowly constructing a confidential register of research workers, 
and their work for the benefit of the different organizations related to it; and 
now that the great war services are being curtailed, an inventory of scientific 
apparatus and machinery of which the Government is anxious to dispose. It is 
also slowly forming a technical library, and hopes that this library, as well as 
a common room, may be used by officers and directors of the research associations 
for meeting each other, and discussing with officers of the Department matters 
of common interest. 
II.—INVESTIGATIONS CARRIED OUT FOR OTHER DEPARTMENTS OF STATE. 
The next sub-head of National Research deals with investigations carried out 
for other Departments of State. It had been recognised from the beginning 
that if the Department were to initiate researches of its own on the advice of 
the Advisory Council, without knowing the bearing they might have on the 
work or intentions of other Departments of State, confusion, and worse than 
confusion, might result. Accordingly, the Minister invited each Department 
of the Government to appoint one or more assessors to the Advisory 
Council. The assessors have the right to attend the meetings of the Council, 
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