— 
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
RESEARCH AND INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT. 
A Bill has recently been introduced in the House of Lords to prevent 
dumping, and to establish a Special Industries Council to advise as to 
the promotion and assistance of special industries. 
The provisions of the Bill, which are of special interest in connexion 
with industrial research, are contained in those sections which deal 
with the establishment of the Special Industries Council. The special 
industries which the Bill seeks to promote and assist originated in great 
measure through the war, and are enumerated in the Second Schedule 
of the Bill. They are defined to be industries supplying commodities 
which are essential to the national safety—as being absolutely indispens- 
able to important industries carried on in the United Kingdom, and 
which formerly were entirely or mainly supplied from outside countries. 
They cannot be said to be firmly established as yet; some of them, like 
the manufacture of synthetic dyes, have made extraordinary progress, 
and their permanence is only a question of time; others are being 
developed with more or less rapidity; but every one of them is the 
subject of continued scientific inquiry and research, and it is the pur- 
pose of the projected measure to foster and protect them during this 
period. 
_ To this end, the Bill provides for the creation of a Council of not 
fewer than five and not more than nine persons of commercial and 
industrial experience to be appointed by the President of the Board 
of Trade. Its duties will be to watch the course of industrial develop- 
ment, and, in consultation with the Department of Scientific and Indus- 
trial Research, to advise the Board of Trade as to the promotion and 
assistance of ’special industries. The Council will be required to 
examine applications or proposals for the promotion, assistance, better 
organization, or management of any special industry, and to advise the 
Board of Trade as to what steps, if any, should be taken to conserve 
or promote any special industry. 
SCIENCE AND DEFENCE. 
The British memorandum of the Secretary of State for War relat- 
ing to the Army Estimates for 1920-21 is a notable document in both 
its national and scientific aspects. It represents the introduction of a 
new attitude towards military and medical science, as is shown by 
-the following quotations:—‘* We must continue to develop the power 
of our armaments, not by accumulating large stocks of weapons and 
stores for a great national Army in peace time of patterns that may 
become obsolete before they are used, but by scientific research and 
experiment, which will.lead to the design of the best types, and by - 
preparation, which will enable -bulk production to commence without 
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