BRITAIN’S INDUSTRIES

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 28 July 1928, Page 11

BRITAIN’S INDUSTRIES

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

I 4 A, S a nation it often seems that we in /\ Britain excel in the art of selfM disparagement. We are contin-

ually stressing* and exposing our own faults and we are continually understating our virtues. This may be beneficial in our own domestic circle, but it ■is disastrous in Ihe impression it creates abroad, and even among that great free community of British peoples known as the British Commonwealth of Nations,” writes Baron MeMhet (Sir Alfred Mond).

“When in Canada some time ago I was asked the amazing question: ‘What Avill Britain do when she ceases to manufacture?’ To us in Britain busied and intent on our day’s work, the question seems so foolish as hardly to merit reply, but it does serve to show the curious impression which our habit of self-disparage-ment has created in certain quarters. What is the real position? Far from merely living on her past Britain has at the present day the best Avorking population in the Avorld, the most easily handled of any people, a population of straightforAvard, honest and industrious Avorkers. On the scientific and technical side experts can hold their OAvn and do hold their own Avith the chemists, engineers and so on of any country in the Avorld. Add to this the fact that avc have an unrfvalled geographical position Avith our industrial centres, all relatively close to the sea, and that Ave haAm a temperate climate to steady work all the year round, an d-” you have some of the many reasons Avhy Britain is still one of the biggest factors in the Avorld’s industrial and commercial rivalry. The facts demand further elaboration. If during the past decade Britain has seemed lagging in scientific advance, and scientific organisation, if her basic industries haA'e been depressed and if ftlie has had to support, a burden of more than a million unemployed, if certain of her overseas markets have been captured from her, surely she has some small right to plead the heavy sacrifice of her young manhood, of her workers and her brain poAver which she made in the Avar. Surely also she may plead the utter dislocation of European markets brought about by the Avar. Tf other countries less directly and less se\ r erely hit by the Avar haA r e forged ahead into prosperity, that by no means implies that Britain Avill not recover, and that she will not once again get into her stride and give the lead in science and industry once more to the Avhole AA r orld. The real truth is that she is even noAv getting into her stride again and recovering* her old “industrial punch” and enterprise. Science and scientific research are the keynotes of Britain’s industrial future just as they Avere the basis of her supremacy in the past.

APPLICATION OF SCIENCE. “Lord Balfour once said that whilst Britain has always excelled in pure science, she has never applied science to industry satisfactorily, but has alloAA r ed brilliant ideas originally eA'obved in this country to slip abroad and to return here as fully fledged industrial processes, on account, of our lack of ability to put. such ideas into practice. I av ill take up Lord Balfour on both points. Tn the first place, pure science is the monopoly of no country and it is always possible to place one’s fingers on shining examples in this respect, in all civilised countries. On the other hand I deny that Britain is in any respect behind in the application of science to industry. Take the question of dyes. The public seems to haAT an obsession that, because Perkin discoA*ered the original mairve dye and the dye industry later became flourishing in Germany, that the chemical supremacy of this country Avas thereby endangered. I deny am r OA*erwhelming importance of the dyestuffs industry. Dyes arc not the beginning and end of the chemical industry. • One of the principal reasons for the sloav deA'elopment of the dyestuff industry in this country Avas due to the great legal skill shoAvn by our competitors Avith respect to patents. They sueecded in the past, in tying up the dyestuffs industry of this country to. an extent Avhich has never been fully realised.

“The beginning* of the industrial era was definitely and completely a British movement. I have only to recall the names of Watt and Stephenson to emphasise the point that, the industrial revolution was horn in Britain. While the industrial revolution was commenced by inventions in engineering it was followed by discoveries of the first rate importance in metallurgy. I have only to mention the names of Bessemer, Siemens, Gilchrist and Lothian Bell, to prove that in the sphere of metallurgy, Britain has been the pioneer. Similarly in electricity and modern engineering, Britain has led the world. I have only to mention the name of-Sir Charles Parsons to establish this point.

“British achievement in the chemical and allied industries has, over the last one hundred years, been outstanding. Among the splendid band of leader's have been Henry Muspratt, Alfred Nobel and Ludwig Mond. More recently, two Englishmen, Cross and Bevan, established the artificial silk industry, now rapidly becoming one of the leading industries of this country. Since the war also there has been a tremendous expansion in the British chemical industry. This is the direct, result of the first signs of the exhaustion of the more easily accessible fertile areas of the world. In this

BRAINS AND ENERGY IN ABUNDANCE

expansion a. tremendously important part has been played by engineering. Tn engineering Britain has always been the pioneering country of the world and the lead is still maintained. Our achievements in the application of high pressure technique to the nitrogen industry is alone sufficient proof of our energy and invention. One legitimate criticism is that in the past there has not been sufficient liaison between the academic and the practical sides of research in Britain. In imperial Chemical Industries, Limited, we have met this by forming a research council. We have obtained the services of some of the most distinguished scientific men in the country to work on it. There is no question of them being asked to make immediate contributions to the practical problems. Their duty is to look ahead. Imperial Chemical Industries are also considei’ing a scheme whereby some of their chemical staff can work in the atmosphere of the university. From this mutually beneficial results to both the academic and industrial worker will acei’ue. BRITAIN’S INDUSTRIAL FUTURE.

“One of the most serious indictments which might have been levelled against British industry in the past was the timidity of the capitalist. While there is a complete answer to Lord Balfour’s charge on the application of science to industry in Britain, he would have been on surer ground if he had criticised the lack of the application of science to industrial organisation in this country.. That intense national individuality which has promoted invention in Britain has militated against industrial organisation. Nevertheless, I am optimistic about, the complete picture of Britain’s industrial future. It is true that there are industries which are in backwaters and that there are industries which are bankrupt. Those industries, however, which have applied the principle of' the science of organisation are prosperous and progressive. Those which have failed to utilise the opportunities which this science offered are depressed and retrogressive.

“It is one of the surer signs of the energy and brains behind British industry that we are forging steadily ahead, perhaps slowly but still steadily as is our habit, in the scientific organisation of industry. We are beginning to grasp the principle and the promise of rationalisation, amalgamation and unity. In the near future the world will feel the cumulative effect and the repercussions of this new driving force behind British industry. In this country, as I have said, we have both the men and the material to carry out ideas and to create. After all I have seen leaders of.' industry, plant managers and research experts in almost every country in the world, - and I have come in contact with' them and have some knowledge of their work, and I can say without fear of contradiction that we have to-day in Britain men with more ingenuity and more practical application of scientific principles to actual manufacturing practices, and with more direct minds, than any other country in the world. Given a problem Hho British industrial scientist will find a solution in a more direct and effective, manner than those of any other country, who arrive at their results by a longer process and more investigation and more research. “In the chemical industry, with which I am most particularly concerned, we can claim with confidence equality, and perhaps more, with the chemical industry of other nations. We can claim to have in our ranks leaders of ability, energy, and foresight, tvho are prepared to take up and develop and put into practice any new ideas or new processes which come to their notice, and which seem fruitful and useful. I have instanced our triumph in the field of synthetic nitrogen and fertilisers. * Then again there is the oil from coal problem which we are energetically following up, and there is indeed the whole field of catalysis which l is largely unexplored but in which we are certainly not behindhand or unprepared. In chemistry, engineering, electricity, and in scores of other industries Britain is r showing abundance of brains and energy. Given a little more scope, a little more time to recover and a lifting of the crushing burden of taxation, she will show equal enterprise in those basic industries which are at present so stagnant.

LAND OF PROMISE. “Lastly we must not forget that just as in the past British brains, energy and enterprise built iip that great entity—the British Commonwealth of Nations, so will those same qualities continue to develop that vast heritage in the best interests of civilisation and mankind. The British Empire offers the finest field in the world for brains and energy to operate, and as l have said, in those two qualities we are fully self-supporting. The future of the British is safe with Britons. That future, the greatest single political entity the world has ever seen, is so full of promise and potentialities as to defy prophecy. We of advancing years, while we may see. some of the promised land, yet there lies behind it a terra incognita which is still more striking than we have been permitted to see, and which a younger generation will enter to maintain the great tradition of British industry and British enterprise already established.”