must have food and raiment and must pay for it almost anything demanded. A terrible position truly for Great Britain, so lately the financial arbiter of the world! Yet such is precisely her position with exchange at 4.50, provided that such a situation is suffered to continue or to become worse. *

It is time-if not past the time-when the Englishman and the British Government should realise that exchange is a subject which can be viewed with comparative unconcern so long as one is a creditor, but which can become a most potent instrument of injury when one is a debtor. Precedents drawn from what you did when everybody owed you money are of sinister value now when you owe money all round. His Majesty's Treasury will do well to consider that one hundred years' experience of the former happy state of things can now only mislead and ensnare. Reference to first principles and scientific examination of the subject, with a view not to consideration but to action, are vital to the safety of Great Britain. The drop in American exchange to 4.50 is a disaster as great as the fall of Warsaw, yet it could have been avoided with ease, unless, indeed, British finance and British credit are impaired far beyond the belief of the present writer. The peril was foreseen by every banker. Exchange stood long at the danger-point. It was known that the balance of trade would move heavily against London with the approach of autumn, the movement of cotton, and shipments of munitions from the States. Yet the Government did nothing. Doubtless they considered, but they did not act; and consideration does not influence exchange. The man who first remarked that England 'always muddled through' should have been court-martialled and shot.

One asks the questions: What could have been done? What can be done? The answer again is simple. It is the answer given to every debtor. Either pay your debts, or extend the time of payment to a more convenient season by borrowing. International debts can only be paid in gold, since an increase of exports is out

* Since this was written, exchange has been steady for some time at 4.70; and the Financial Commission sent out to the U.S. for the purpose of restoring it has met a good deal of the criticism. The fall to 4.50 appears to have been largely due to speculation (EDITOR).

of the question. So either England must send gold, or she must borrow in America. There is no doubt whatever that she could have sent gold were it necessary. There is equally no doubt that she could have borrowed -on terms, perhaps, she did not like, but that is beside the point. If exchange should stand for a year at 4.50 without anything being done, which, by the way, is an impossibly optimistic assumption, the loss would be about 30,000,000l.; and, as an extra 1 per cent. or even 2 per cent. on the necessary loan of 200,000,000l., to cover the balance needed, would only amount to 2,000,000l. or 4,000,000l., it is hard to defend the lack of action from the point of view of economy.

If for any reason, good or bad, resort was not had to borrowing in the States, there can be no possible defence for delay in the payment of debts while the whole world stands aghast at the shock to British credit. Great Britain must now pay; she is preparing to send abroad, and is now sending, large amounts of gold. Why do it after the catastrophe has come? Can there be a doubt that the terms on which she may now borrow will be less advantageous than could have been had for the asking six or even three months ago? Probably she must now ship gold until exchange has again reached parity and confidence has in some measure been restored. Then she must borrow; for England, France, and Russia together have not sufficient gold to pay indefinitely for all their purchases and maintain intact their national credit and note issues. But with what anxiety must every informed and thinking Englishman watch to see whether the Treasury and the Government are now at this late hour alive to the reality of the menace! Exchange must again reach parity; confidence must be restored; an American loan must be secured. Sufficient gold must be sent to effect these results; the necessary terms must be made to command the loan. And time element. It will not answer to repeat the melancholy story of the Dardanelles-to send too little gold, to do everything just too late. Shall a general confronted by an assailant of equal force consider and debate whether to bring into action this or that brigade when the strength of his whole army will scarce avail to save his country?

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Art. 13.-INDUSTRIAL-SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH.

1. Board of Education. Scheme for the Organisation and Development of Scientific and Industrial Research. (Cd. 8005.) London: Wyman, 1915.

2. An Experiment in Industrial Research. Educational Pamphlet (No. 30), published for the Board of Education. London: Wyman, 1915.

NATIONAL characteristics are exemplified in the history of the industrial applications of science. The success of the Germans in this field, which has been unpleasantly demonstrated by the war, is a token of their faith in education and science, their foresight and patience, their confidence and thoroughness, and their prodigality in the training and use of human material. Mobility of capital and freedom from hampering commercial traditions have also been contributing factors. The Englishman, by comparison, appears complacent and surfeited with prosperity. Before the war, he stolidly refused to be disturbed by the exhortations of professors on the national importance of scientific research; and statesmen were content to whistle for the wind of public opinion. The war showed that Great Britain was almost entirely dependent upon Germany for dyes; and Parliament was induced to offer public assistance in support of a scheme for the establishment of the dye manufacturing industry in this country on a firmer basis. A few months later, Mr Pease, and his successor as President of the Board of Education, Mr Arthur Henderson, were able to formulate and secure acceptance of the scheme for the promotion of scientific and industrial research described in the White Paper mentioned above.

Conditions in the United States show points of similarity and of contrast. One is impressed by the popular enthusiasm for education, but, still more, by the spontaneity of initiative and the sense of individual responsibility which are characteristic of the people. Mr Carnegie, Mr Rockefeller and others who have profited by industrial success come forward with benefactions for the promotion of scientific research with a liberality which renders State assistance of secondary importance;

and the work is taken in hand with a vigour and élan which promise surprising results. The pamphlet An Experiment in Industrial Research,' describing the work of Prof. R. K. Duncan for the promotion of industrial research, illustrates the same point. Within a space of some eight or nine years before his untimely death, in 1914, Prof. Duncan was able to work out his scheme for associating manufacturers with industrial research in Universities and to secure the co-operation of manufacturers and the support of benefactors. The result is to be seen in the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research in the University of Pittsburgh, a new building, admirably equipped and providing accommodation for seventy research workers, in which research into scientific problems of an industrial character is now in progress.

Any enquiry into methods of industrial research must start with the admission that the most important discoveries have arisen from the work of men of science who have drawn their inspiration from the 'supreme delight of extending the realm of law and order ever farther towards the unattainable goal of the infinitely great and the infinitely little.' Wohler, by his classical experiments on the synthetical production of urea, originated a new branch of science which has formed the basis of innumerable industries connected with dyes, foods, drugs, explosives and other commodities. An English chemist, Sir William Perkin, discovered in 1856 the first aniline dye, mauvine,' and thus laid the foundation of a great industry. In his essay on the Functions of a University, Sir William Ramsay remarks that it would have been impossible to predict, when Hofmann set Perkin as a young student at the Royal College of Chemistry to study the products of oxidation of the base aniline, produced by him from coal-tar, that one dye factory alone would at a later date possess nearly 400 buildings and employ 350 chemists and 5000 workmen. Other examples quoted by the same writer are, in the chemical field, the work of Schönbein, a Swiss schoolmaster, whose investigation into the action of nitric acid on paper and cotton resulted in the production of nitro-cellulose; and, in the physical field, Faraday's work on induced currents, upon which are based electric light and traction and the Vol. 224.-No. 445.

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utilisation of electricity as a motive power and for the transmission of energy.

The history of science shows, however, that the work of the 'pure' scientist generally breaks off at a point before the industrial application of his discoveries is reached, either because he has no interest in or aptitude for this aspect of the work, or because the industrial application has to wait for some scientific advance in another direction. The chemist who discovers some new metal may not consider himself under any obligation to investigate its utility in the hardening of steel; or the discoverer of a new rare earth may have no interest in its applicability for the purpose of illumination. Some pause between scientific discovery and its industrial application is indeed almost inevitable. Consider, for instance, the history of aluminium, which was discovered by Wohler in 1827. For some twenty years the new element remained of academic interest only. In 1855 Henri Sainte Claire Deville's study of the metal, encouraged and subsidised by the Emperor Napoleon III, reduced the cost of production to 187. a pound; and, by improvements in the method of manufacture, the price was further reduced to 2l. 10s. a pound in 1888. In this year Kastner's new process for the manufacture of sodium brought about a further reduction of the price of aluminium to 16s. a pound. But this success was soon eclipsed, for in the following year the electrolytic method of producing aluminium revolutionised the industry. The output of aluminium produced by this method is estimated at 50,000 tons a year and its value at 4,000,0007. Another familiar and often-quoted example comes from the artificial production of indigo. The work of Liebig and Baeyer on the constitution of indigo was elucidated and developed through Kekulé's theoretical work in 1869 on the arrangement of the atoms in the molecule of indigo; and in 1880 Baeyer discovered a method for the industrial production of the dye. The problem was taken over by the famous firm of chemical manufacturers-the Badische Anilin- und Soda-Fabrik of Ludwigshafen. It is said that twenty years of patient investigation and an expenditure of about 1,000,000l. were devoted to the work. The artificial production of indigo is now carried out on an enormous scale, the value of