The Times reports a Japanese discovery which may prove of
great commercial importance. Yokiehi Takamine, formerly a student in Glasgow, has succeeded in producing from the roots of the Eurotium Oryzie, crystals of diastase, the chemical substance sought by the usual processes of malting. Takamine's crystals, mixed with crude wheat-bran in equal proportions, "if added in the proportion of 10 per cent. to the grain mashed, will effect a more perfect con- version than the use of 10 per cent. of the best malt." In other words, the production of good beer and good spirits will have been cheapened and made more certain by the intelligence of a Japanese savant. That is capital news for all European Chancellors of the Exchequer, who will, let us hope, snap up half the saving effected in breweries and distilleries. The story, which appears in extenso in the Times of Thursday, p. 6, is a notable incident in the most marvellous phenomenon of our time, the sudden up- lifting of the cloud from the intellect of an Asiatic people. If we could only believe that moral improvement would keep pace with intellectual, we should hail a new vivifying force born into the world under our eyes.
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