SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
/ 
standard of technical excellence. The industry has behind it the power 
of the German Government, who used it to carry out their policy of 
peaceful penetration before the war and to secure a hold upon the 
textile industry of all other countries. 
The greater the production of dyes in peace, the greater the strength 
of Germany in war. What are the inevitable conclusions? The greater 
our production of dyestuffs, the less have we to fear from a surprise 
attack by the Germans. The possession of a counter to this weapon 
of the I.G. is the surest guarantee of peace. Deliberately to leave to 
the Germans the monopoly in the rapid production of toxie gases on a 
large scale is a thing which no responsible statesman will contemplate 
with equanimity. 
T do not, in the least, advocate the continuance of gas warfare. Those 
who have been concerned in the manufacture of the most dangerous 
of these products are not advocates of their retention as a means of 
warfare. I do not desire to build plants for the purpose of making 
toxic gases, wishing, as I do, with my whole heart for the abolition 
of this mode of warfare. No person can contemplate without horror 
the thought of being again engaged in a struggle such as that from 
which we have ‘barely emerged with safety. 
Presipent Wrison’s View. 
No man has shown himself so desirous of ‘abolishing war as President 
Wilson, the great protagonist of the League of Nations, yet this is 
what he said: “ The close relation to the manufacture of dyestuffs on 
_the one hand and explosives and poison gases on the other hand, more- 
over, has given the aniline dye industry exceptional significance and 
value. Although the United States will gladly and unhesitatingly 
join in the programme of any national disarmament, it will neverthe- 
less be a policy of obvious prudence to make certain of the successful 
maintenance of many strong and well-equipped chemical plants.” ‘ 
If President Wilson is convinced that, in spite of the Treaty of 
Versailles, and the signing of the Covenant of the League of Nations, 
a strong dye industry is required for the security of the United States, 
we may justly consider that our own island is not safe if we have in 
peace time no factories in this country comparable with those of the I.G. 
The length of this article precludes me from referring at length to 
the Haber process for making ammonia, which, combined with the 
Ostwald process for producing nitric acid from ammonia, enabled the 
Germans to carry out the manufacture of high explosives in spite of — 
our blockade; but for the development of this process by the I.G. the 
Germans would have been unable to continue the war after 1916. . 
The manufacture of ammonia by this process is ‘being taken up in 
this country by a powerful and able concern greatly to our national 
advantage, but the research organization which produced the Haber 
process which we are now adopting was that of the I.G., and unless 
research organization of similar character is encouraged in this country. 
we shall continue to be following instead of leading the Germans in 
' the discovery of chemical inventions. of industrilal and inilitary 
importance. , : 
614 
