SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
INTERNATIONAL STANDARDIZATION OF ELECTRICAL 
MACHINERY. 
A great deal of valuable work in the direction of the international 
standardization of electrical machinery, plant, and equipment has been 
carried out by the International Electro-technical Commission. 
Although it has maintained its organization intact, that body did not 
hold any meetings during the war. At the first meeting after the war, 
held at London in October, 1919, it was decided to re-appoint the various 
committees which were at work before the war, and to appoint some 
additional committees. There are new eight committees at work, viz.— 
(a) Nomenclature; (b) Rating of Electrical Machinery; (c) Symbols; 
(d) Nomenclature of Prime Movers for Electrical Plant; (e) 
Aluminium, standard of resistance; (f) Screw Lamp Caps and Lamp 
Holders, interchangeability; (gy) Charging Plugs for Electrical Vehicles, 
interchangeability; (h) Pressures for Distribution. A meeting of the 
Commission will be held this year in the United States of America. 
THE ENGLISH DYE INDUSTRY. 
Lord Moulton does not share the prevailing fear that Germany is 
going to assume again quickly the dominant position in the production of 
dyes. Speaking recently at an open meeting of colour users, he spoke 
of the precautions taken to prevent such control: During the war he 
was astonished that England, so utterly unprepared with ready-made 
chemical industries, could respond to the colossal demands upon it, and 
could at once overtop the great chemical industries of Germany in a 
war that turned upon chemistry most of all. He had learned that, again 
and again, the Germans were on the verge of failure to meet the demand 
for ammunition, again and again were driven from one expedient to 
another, and again and again their chemical industries came. to the 
assistance of the nation with devices which reflected the greatest credit 
on their scientific power and originality. The factories which we had 
to build to supply the demands of the war were now disappearing, 
because they were set up purely for war purposes, whereas the Germans, 
in their enlarged chemical factories, in the swollen establishments of all 
their dye firms, had a wealth remaining behind which, although ereated 
for war, was still serviceable in peace. The great German dye industry, 
supported by the Government very largely during the war, accumulated 
large stocks. England had been starved of them, except in so far as 
her own efforts have been able to create industries to make dyes under 
the difficult conditions of war time. Therefore the first reason for the 
clause of the Peace Treaty, which gave the Allies the right to part of 
the German stocks of dyes, was to insure that the world would not be at 
the mercy of Germany, because Germany possessed the only stocks of 
dye. For that purpose it was provided that 50 per cent. of those stocks 
should be taken, by way of reparation, at a price to be settled by the 
Allies, and to be credited to the reparation fund. The other part of the 
clause was intended to protect us in the future. 
COUNTER-STROKE TO GERMAN MONOPOLY. 
Forty years of growth, assistance from the German Government, and 
our own negligence, and that of other nations, in regard to chemical 
industries, had, Lord Moulton said, left Germany in a position to produce 
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