SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

Waikato Times, Volume 101, Issue 16896, 9 September 1926, Page 10

SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.

VALUE OF RESEARCH. PRACTICAL APPLICATION. The congress" of~~the Society of Chemical Industry, in which a numbci of other scientific organisations associated with the chemical trades are co-operating, opened reoentij at tn. Central Hall, Westminster. Lord Balfour dealt with the relation of the Stale lo science and industry. The. relation of Government lo research must always he difficult to fix, and could not be embodied in any set formula The assistance to he given must depend upon the particular exigencies of the moment and the character of the problem which was being attacked, but it could he claimed that the department over which he presided was capable of performing, and, indeed, bad performed, in the comparatively few years of its existence, great services to the public. Successive Stages. It was interesting to trace out the association between science and industry. In the first stage were to he found the men of genius, wholly unconnected with industry, moved only by the desire to further knowledge, possessed of an insatiable curiosity, and endowed with that special gift which enabled them to penetrate a little further than others into the innumerable secrets of nature. To these pioneers fell Hie immortal glory of making those discoveries which lay at (he root of our knowledge or nature. Work of this fundamental character, which was the product of genius, could he stimulated only by education. The second stage called for the introduction of men or constructive ability who could sec bow the achievements of the pure scientist could be applied in practice. It was found that obstacles bad to be overcome and problems, not of a fundamental character perhaps, arose for solution at this stage of progress. When these difficulties had been overcome it was then necessary to test what had been achieved on a scale which, although larger than that of a laboratory experiment, was still far below the full-sized scale which must be the ultimate test before any scientific discovery could be directly applied in industry. Beyond that was the organisation of production in full scale units and the marketing of the output. What the Government Can Do. That was not perhaps an entirely accurate biography of the process by which a scientific discovery became a commercial process, but it illustrated tho kind of thing which happened in a majority of instances. It was interesting to ask where in that industrial evolution lay the function of the Government. A government department could do little to further fundamental discoveries and should not intrude in Hie work of building factories or finding markets. Broadly speaking, the assistance of government should be given in the middle region, where the work was in the stage where industry as a whole, and not one branch of industrv, was interested. With lhat view of the function of government in mind it was necessary that the officers of the Department of Scientific Research should take a general view of world industry. If that were done lie was not sure that the results of investigation -would prove satisfactory to those concerned with the position and outlook of British industry. Not a Good Showing. There had been no falling off In Britain in the achievements in the field of fundamental research. British scientists had done their share in increasing the knowledge available of the world in which wc lived. When consideration was given, however, to the practical application of scientific knowledge to the great industries based upon science it had to be confessed that Great Britain did not make a very good showing. The excuse was sometimes made that Great Britain had the disadvantage of not possessing the material resources which were the essentials of successful industry. It had been pointed out however, that Hie trend of modern industry was to reduce the variety of raw materials necessary. Many valuable modern commercial products required nothing more than coal, water, and air, of which there was no Jack in Great Britain. Dependent on Coal. The heavy chemical industries were largely dependent on coat as a raw material, distinct from coal as a-source of power, light, or tieat. The essential materials for the production of synthetic ammonia and of methyl aleohol were coal, water, and air. There was also the question of the employment of coal as the raw material of other forms of fuel. It was not, perhaps, so much in the direction of low temperature carbonisation that great developments would bo made, hut in some process for the hydrogenation of coal which would relieve industry from reliance on the oilfields of the world. Tho increase in the demand for oil and its products would continue, and it was difficult lo believe that it would not outstrip supply. It was clear that as far as Great Britain was concerned it would he an enormous advantage if it were possible to utilise the coal deposits for the reproduction of liquid fuel, lie believed that sooner or later it would be accomplished. The chemical industry should be capable of turning coal to every sort of account from the production of dyes lo heavy oils, and thus add immensely lo production and employment within lhe comparatively narrow frontiers of Great Britain.

It was unfortunate that the applications of science to which lie had referred, whether successful or merely on the road to success, were of foreign origin. Tin's fact suggested that there was something wanting in the application in Great Britain of scientific knowledge to industry. While yielding to none in his admiration of the business capacity and other qualities of the great. British business community and Ihe part the members played in the economic work of the world he would plead for a combination with those qualities of special scientific knowledge, and, coupled with that, broad and imaginative outlook, which were tile bases of ttic great industries in countries with whom Great Britain was in close relations not merely of friendship hut of competition.