FINE CHEMICALS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 182, 1 August 1923, Page 10

FINE CHEMICALS.

A KEY INDUSTRY. i BRITAIN'S VITAL INTEREST. Reviewing a pamphlet entitled "Shall the btate throw away the keys?" written by Sir William Pope (Professor of Cnemistry at Cambridge), and issued by the Association of British Chemical Manufacturers, Mr. S. W. B. McGregor (Senior British Trade Commissioner in Australia) emphasised the importance of Britain maintaining the fine chemical industry as a "key" industry vital to the safety and possibly the existence of all citizens of the British Empire. Mr. McGregor pointed out that the last few years had seen the close of one of the greatest periods in the history of many Empires, and wo were now in" the opening years of another chapter in the history of our country. The responsibility rested on us to apply the oxperieneo gained in the past to the continued development of our national heritage. He said that prior to the war Germany had no equal in the manufacture of fine organic products known as fine ;heraicale. Until 1014 Britain had been content to j develop industries in which she was pro!eminent, and to leave others, irroueously presumed to be comparatively unimportant, to be exploited by Germany, which for 40 or 50 years had made an intensive study of fine chemical manufacture. Probably few could even yet fully realise the perils which faced Britain "in 1915 and 1!)16, owing to the fact that the production of many chemical products was entirely in German hand-;.

Continuing, the Trade Commissioner traced the manner in -which the British manufacturers responded to the need for numerous chemical products during the war, and emphasised the fact that at the end of the war the position was practically dominated by chemical manufacturing capacity and ability. Britain gained that dominance regardless of expense. "Are we to allow these advances, :so dearly bought, to alter for the worse spontaneously?" asked Mr. McGregor, "because to perfect our knowledge and equipment, a few years of trade under conditions of security from devastating competition are needed, hex, there be no mistake. History shows that a new war begins wbere the last war left off. A future war would be a chemical war from the outset. A country starting a new , war would not repeat the miscalculations which Germany made in the last one."

Mr. McGregor said that it was of greater importance to Germany that the British fine chemical industry should be destroyed than that we should reduce our army and navy to microscopical proportions.