INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 172, 4 May 1936, Page 8

INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH

WARNING TO BRITAIN. A warning that Britain was slipping back in scientific industrial research and relying too much again oil the commercial buying of materials and new processes, was uttered by Professor Jocelyn Thorpe, the retiring president, at the annual meeting of the Institute of Chemistry. He, recalled the parlous position of Britain at the outbreak of war in regard to flic production of essential materials as a result of relying on the purchase of them from other countries. He, recalled, too, what he described as the peculiar subtle menace of buying a mail with the new process, and how sometimes that man would return to his own country with full knowledge of the customers and the methods of the new concern in Britain, ready to cut out the business he bad just helped to build up in Britain. Purchase of both materials and processes from outside, Professor Thorpe said, meant that less chance was afforded research schools to foster national industry, and less chance was given them of placing their men in suitable employment. Unless industry supported its own research laboratories, and through them the research training schools, the latter could no longer exist. It was useless for industry to provide funds for the provision of research schools unless it could provide employment for those who went through them.