Evening journal., 1916-04-18
SPIRIT OF THE
DELMARVIA PRESS
THE NITROGEN PLANTS.

From the Wilmington Sunday Star.
The vote in the United States Senate
on Friday in favor of government
owned nitrogen plants raises many seri.
Gus questions that should be weighed
very carefully and considered from
every angle before final action is taken.
No one seems to know whether the
government owns or can secure the
rights to- any process for the fxation of
atmospheric nitrogen, which it can use
proftably.
There is involved the question of
whether the government can do such
work half as well as il can he done bv
private interests, and the worlds ex-
perience has been that IL can not. Even
in patemalistic Germany the govern
ment does not undertake to supplant
private enterprise; it only encourages
1t, and German preparedness at the be-
ginning of the present war is evidence
of the success of this way of managing
big problems.
1t should not be forgotten that the
government is not driven TO this untried
extreme as a war measure. There is
before Congress now, a bill submitted
by the DUPONT Company which seems to
provide for all that is desirable in the
situation.
The main features Of the dupont pro-
posal can be summarized in a very few
words. All that the dupont Company
asks is that the government shall make
il possible for it to use water power
now going to waste and in return for
this permission the duPonts will expend
a sum, estimated at $4,000. 900 holding
their entire plant subject at all times
TO government call on the governments
own terms.
It hardly seems possible to present a
proposal with stronger attractive fea %
lures.
The DUPONT Company before the war,
purchased the American patent rights
to the American patent rights to the
Norwegian nitrogen processes. which are
the only commercially practicable pro-
cesses known. The dupont Company
had about concluded arrangements to
build a plant in Canada American
water-power not being available. but
the opening of the war and the thought
that the bases of American munitions
should not he manufactured outside of
the limits OF the United States led il to
abandon this project. The development
of naval warfare as shown by the pres
ent world struggle makes it necessary
that the United States. as matter of
national defense. should be absolutely
independent of all the rest of the world
We are now independent in everything
except one item alone-nitrates.
The dupont Company can we'll afford
to invest millions in the proposed plant
because its vast commercial business To-
quires immense quantities of nitric acid
in times of peace. IL alone can afford
10 build such n plant and make IL COM
mercially profitable so that it may be
available for the sudden and vastly in
creased demands in times Of war. The
ability Of the company to do such 4
thing as this is shown by the great ex-
pansion which met the demands Of the
present war. II had an organization
complete in every detail; IL was only a
question of adding TO it..
Many arguments might be made
against government ownership. or
against government control. or for
either of these propositions, but these
things do not enter into the dupont pro-
posal. The President Of the company is
on record as saying that the company
had no interest in opposing any other
proposal: that IL does not care how
many other PLANTS are built by private
concerns. II simply asks that waste
power he made available to It and il
viii put its product at the disposal of