, SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
THE ALERT JAPANESE. 
While he was in California, Professor Robertson was brought into 
close touch with the Japanese, and when invited to give his experience 
of educational affairs in the land of the Lotus he said higher education 
and research work were going ahead with remarkable strides in Japan. 
“They are constantly sending men over to America,’ he -continued, 
“to study American methods. The expenses of these men are paid by 
the Government. It is their duty to ascertain at first hand all they 
can about new methods and discoveries. If an American professor — 
makes some discovery which promises to be of value, commercially and 
otherwise, before very long a member of the faculty of one of the 
Japanese Universities is waiting upon the American and requesting per- 
mission to work with him for a year or two. The Japanese learns all 
he can about the new process, discovery, or system, and then returns 
to his own land to use the information. The Japanese Government 
Just before I left America set aside a million sterling for research in 
physics alone. That gives some indication of their alertness. There 
can be ne question to-day about the value of this work. Industrial 
research has proved to be of the utmost value, and the development in 
America may be ascribed almost wholly to it. Great Britain has had 
her lesson also. When the war broke out she was using a substance 
_ known as acetone for making her nitro-glycerine explosives. It was 
made from waste wood. But all the wood in Great Britain could not 
have provided acetone enough. Her total output at the time was enough 
for only one day’s fighting. At that time the wood process was the only 
one known for producing acetone, but a bio-chemist working in Manx 
chester in research respecting the bacteria inhabiting soils—which did 
not appear to have any relation to high explosives—discovered a 
bacteria producing acctone from starch. From that apparently unim. 
portant discovery came one of the great industries of the war, and 
that chemist, after having set the industry going in Britain, went across 
to Canada, took over a whisky distillery, added to it, and adapted it, 
and to-day that factory covers an entire city block, is five stories high, 
and gives employment to 2,000 persons. ‘The great fact that must be 
remembered about research work is that it may prove of, altogether 
unreckoned importance, and may give—as it has done hundreds of times 
—a new industry to the State and immense improyements to existing 
industries. That has been America’s experience. Research work also 
fits men to grapple with old problems in a new and successful way. 
This work is necessary and justifiable in every sense. We can only meet 
our war expenditure and waste by making one hour’s work produce what 
two hours’ work produced before. This will be achieved by bringing 
trained intelligence to ‘the assistance of labour. Half a century ago 
. research was cheap, because apparatus was crude and simple. Now it 
is expensive because apparatus is complex and costly. The United 
States, Canada, and Japan have proved that research justifies very large 
éxpenditure.” 
ny E73 
