NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19659, 10 June 1927, Page 10

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

RESEARCH IN INDUSTRY. In a preface to a publication issued by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Lord Balfour emphasises tho possible value of applied Science to British industry. Lord Balfour points out that the publication contains an account of the results of the endeavours made by the department to promote schemes under which firms engaged in the same industry may, with Government aid, co-operato in the task of conducting scientific investigations in their common interest. "The policy," ho writes, "has now been in operation eight years, and has had its successes and its failures; though I cannot doubt that the successes have predominated. The experiment has been tried in difficult times. It is when trade is bad and foreign competition is most severe that researches of the kind contemplated are most required; but it is precisely at times like these that a manufacturer is least able and least willing to undertake them. They are costly; they are uncertain; and even when successful their success may be slow. But though the difficulties are great, the need is greater still. The powerful and enlightened corporations of the United States and Germany are keenly alive to the necessity of turning to the best account the scientific discoveries for which this age is so remarkable. They believe in the policy of research; they carry it out with coufage, enterprise and great resources; they take the long view; and they are richly rewarded. In the fundamental discoveries of pure science this country, I believe, has taken its full share. About applied science I am not so sure. But the efforts recorded in the present paper show that a real advance has been made; and I am convinced that a dispassionate study of its pages will confirm the opinions of those who hold, as I do, that in the closer union of practical experience and scientific inquiry lie our best hopes for the material progress of mankind." SUING THE CROWN. The time-honoured procedure by which, under English law, a subject could sue the Crown only by a petition of right is being changed for a more direct and less cumbrous method, according to a legal writer. The gradual and welcome tendency to simplify matters of legal procedure for the ordinary litigant, and incidentally save expense, has been carried further forward by the new facilities which have just been recommended by a .special committee in relation to cases where the subject is at suit with the Crown. For many years the rather cumbrous machinery known as the petition of right, by which the subject was granted the privilege of claiming against the Crown, has been criticised on the score of formality and expense, and under the new arrangement the litigant with the Crown will be placed in as easy a position as relates to ordinary actions. The petition of right, by which in the past claims against the Crown have been presented to the courts, has an historical interest, for it is traceable direct from the declaration known as petition of rights, sanctioned by one of the Parliaments of King Charles 1., giving the subject a means o;E suing the Crown for debts. It has only been possible up to the present to bring such a suit before the Judges after the presentation of the petition through the Home Secretary and tho receipt of the fiat of the AttorneyGeneral. These formalities are now being very largely dispensed with, and another advantage to the subject is that the Crown will be empowered, when it has a claim, to prosecute it in the County Courts instead of always, as hitherto, going to the High Court. GERMAN CAPITAL IN RUSSIA. Among the criticisms passed against the action of the British Government in severing relations with Soviet Russia was that which said tho result would be a stimulus to German trade. A London commentator writing before the breach suggests that the exploitation of Russian concessions has not proved wholly profitable to German capital. A report has been given some prominence in London that German bankers and industrialists are negotiating with the Government of the U.S.S.'R. a new scheme of credits involving £40,000,000, he writes. As that report has led to some misconception, it ought perhaps to be explained that the report itself is misconceived. According to authoritative German information, no group in Germany contemplates any new credit scheme lor Russian trade beyond the 300,000,000 marks scheme of last year, although tentative proposals have been made to extend the amount by a further 50,000,000 marks. The report alluded to was no doubt clue to a misunderstanding caused by incomplete information about the minor subsidiary proposals for extending an existing scheme, the misunderstanding being accentuated by a confusion between pounds sterling and marks. It is indeed by no means certain, according to information from German sources, that the proposed extension will be sanctioned by Berlin. Those German industrialists who have been trying to develop connections in Russia by means of last year's credits are understood to be somewhat disappointed with the results achieved. The famous Mologa Company for instance has found that its attempt to exploit its timber concession in Russia has been unprofitable.' The Russian condition which prescribes that all orders shall be placed through tho State organisation has been found to involve subterfuges and expenditure which have whittled away most of the profits. At present there is said to be little inclination on the part of German bankers and industrialists to extend the scope of the experiment started last yoar.