STATE-AIDED RESEARCH.*
THERE is at least one Department, founded during the war, whose continuance will not be questioned' by the advocates of economy.. It is a very small Department ; its total expenditure last year was £177,201, according to ,the Report which it has just issued. But, ae Dr. Johnson said of Thrale's Brewery, it contains " the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice," because its business is to encourage the application of trained intelligence to industry and public services. The distinguishing feature of, this Committee.of Scientific and Industrial Research is, while that, it. spends little, it may ease the country millions, to say nothing of the gain to knowledge and to health. For example, the Department set an expert to study the typical British kitchen range which, as every householder knows, devours coal with shameless voracity. The results obtained have, we are told, been " particularly interesting and surprising " ; " during the year the improvements it is hoped to secure in the construction of kitchen ranges alone will save far more in the annual cost of coal consumed than is being spent each year upon all our activities." That is a small illustration of the work which the Department has set itself to do. Kitchen, ranges form one of the problems which confront the Building 'Materials Committee. This committee set qualified men of science to consider how concrete might be made cheaply, whether a thin wall need be a perfect conductor of sound, or permeable by gas, and so on. We are particularly interested to find that the committee secured a laboratory in the L.C.C. School of Building at Brixton for the special purpose of investigating the old methods, of buildingwith earth and chalk. Furthermore, the committee is erecting five experimental cottages on State land at Amesbury, " with local materials by methods which have fallen into disuse or by new methods suggested by scientific investigation." The Board.of Agriculture will take the cottages at. a, fixed price,and the new Department will bear the loss if the cost of building exceeds the estimate. As. the. Report says, if only a sovereign could be saved on each of the new houses that have to, be built, the aggregate saving would be large. Thirty or forty, different kinds or types of. materials are used in building a small house. Perhaps half a. dozen of these have been studied scientifically. Yet before the war, in England and Wales alone, about t350000,00x0' a year were spent on building materials. It may be safely affirmed that experts who gave their mind to the subject could show us how to save several of these millions: We shall have more tosay on this subject before long. It is squally clear that, if houses were built more carefully and honestly, the public health would be greatly benefited.
The work of the. Department, is partly direct, partly indirect. During the war it naturally devoted. much energy to special inquiries for military purposes, in connectiorn, for instance; with the anti-submarine campaign. Now that peace has come, its direct influence will be, exerted_ through the National Physical Laboratory, the Fuel Research. Board, the Food Investigation Board, the. Geological Survey and Museum—from November next—and other organizations dealing with large and general questions. Its indirect. influence, which is not less important, is exerted upon the various industries which are being encouraged .to bring. science to bear upontheir difficulties. The Advisory Council, which guides the-scientific work, is composed of seven eminent members of the Royal Society, with Sir William McCormick as chairman and Sir Frank Heath as secretary and with " assessors " from all the Government offices so that the whole administration may be cognisant of what is being done. The: Council has wisely determined that the State shall not conduct investigations for " the, immediate benefit" of the industries but. that it may show the industries how to set about the task and help, them to organize inquiries. Thus-the British scientific instrument makers—manufacturing optical, electrical, X-ray and other apparatus—have formed an association which will receive a State.grant of £70,000 in five years if it raises £7,0001 and carries out a scheme of scientific investigation that worth: benefit this typical " key industry." The glees industry, again, has formed a similar association which will receive a grant of £20,000 a year for five years if it raises £5,000 a year for scientificpurposes concerned with glass-making. Other trades have shown a similar desire to call in the man of science and set him to work on problems the solution of which may be of great value to the manufacturer. The photograpfiic industry, the cotton; linen and woollen trades, the motor industry, and the boot and shoe trade, the iron,. Portland cement and sugar industries, have already formed associations, and others, like the piano manufacturers, are doing the same. It is interesting to note that the pottery manufacturers combined during the war to supply Dr. Mellor and Mr. Bernard Moore with funds for experiments in the manufacture of hard-paste porcelain and that, as the outcome of these experiments, a neva faotory is to be established. Bard paste porcelain was made by Cookworthy at Plymouth and by Champion at Bristol in the late eighteenth century, but our potters since then have preferred to make " English bone china," leaving hard-paste of the Chinese type, such as Dresden produced two centuries ago, to the Continental potter. The war, however, taught us that hard-paste porcelain for use in the laboratory and for various industrial purposes was too important to be neglected, so that this interesting branch of the pottery industry will once again be essayed by English potters.
While the work of these scientific trade associations should steadily strengthen our industries and render them more capable of withstanding foreign competition in the world's markets, the inquiries conducted under the direct supervision of the Department ought to have a marked effect upon the public welfare and the public expenditure. The Fuel Research Board, for example, has an immense field of usefulness. Everyone knows that wo have, as a nation, been very wasteful in our consumption of coal. Now that Mr. Smillie and his friends have contributed to making coal scarce and dear, the question of coal consumption has suddenly become very urgent. If the men of science can help us in any way, they will be national benefactors. It is comforting to know that the whole question is at last being thoroughly examined by competent inquirers in properly equipped laboratories at East Greenwich. We have suffered hitherto from a multitude of counsellors with widely different views. The new Board ought to be able to render a decisive and practical verdict. Again, the Food InvestigationBoard has a vast subject of the highest practical importance. The main heads of its programme are fish preservation, engineering, meat preservation, fruit and vegetables, oils and fats, and canned foods. " Engineering " in this connection means cold storage, the importance of which few people understand though the townsman depends upon the cold store for most of his meat and for many other articles of food. If we had plenty of refrimeeting railway vans and efficient cold stores in all towns, it would be possible to supply fresh fish very cheaply to millions of people who now seldom have the opportunity of buying it.. The Food Investigation Board's attempt to devise a perfect refrigerating van, is thus anything but an academic exercise ; if it succeeds, it will not only add to the nation's food-supply but will also put new life into the fishing industry. Yet another Board, working under the Department, is concerned with the medical and economic aspects of industrial fatigue—a large subject which is receiving a great deal of attention in America and which deserves the most careful study. It is widely supposed that the present, industrial unrest has been occasioned in part by fatigue from overwork during the war. This popular theory may be unfounded, but it illustrates the importance of the question. Experts are agreed by now that very long hours of work are' uneconomic. After the first year of the war the munition workers were discouraged, from working excessive overtime and from attending on Sundays because they wore themselves out without materially increasing their output. But the proper length of the. working. day has yet to be determined. for each industry. Moreover, the methods of working may be altered so as to lighten the labour of the workman and at the same time to increase his productivity. Problems like these have to be investigated by the Industrial Fatigue Board, composed of medical men and others well acquainted with industrial conditions. We have only touched on a few of the activities of the Committee of Scientific and Industrial Research, but we have said enough to, indicate the high promise of its work. Its cautious and statesmanlike Report ought to be
attentively read, for it points the way to genuine and enduring reforms based upon knowledge and not upon political passion.
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