Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1916-02-13
A FRENCH MINISTRY OF INVENTIONS

recent report sent to the Presi-
ed in the creation of a
Result of ministry of inventions"
A. The chairman of the COM
VIC "dF' mittee of the chamber said:
THE war in the course Of its pro-
longation takes on more and more the
character of science and machines The
industrial mobilization should be com
pleted by a scientific mobilization"
Thus, for the first time. it appears
that government officially confesses
that science may play a role in the af-
fairs of state. Until now science was
given by government no more con-
sideration than something intangible
and cloudy, worthy certainly of the
greatest reverence. and to which in
consequence there was consecrated an
nually some hundreds of thousands of
francs in the budgets. For fact, gov
eminent regarded the expenditure as a
sort of national luxury and as being
without real utility. The creation of
a ministry of inventions. based upon
scientific discoveries. is little else than
by the necessities of war.
The neglect of the application of
scientific discoveries was the cause of
the apparent advantage of Germany
over the allied entente in the COM
mencement of the war, which had been
prepared for fifty years. Germany had
undoubtedly modified the resources of
science not only for war. but for her
industries. We know that the indus
trial centers of Germany have en-
pIoyed in their service for a long time
men OF science, physicians or chemists
periments. and whose results would be
Immediately exploited practically by
technologists. 1t is to that system that
IS due the prodigious progress of Ger
man chemics applied to industry and
war these recent years.
mus ministry of inventions in
France is an answer little late, it
is true-to German
An Answer to inventions, or rather
Germany. Of ,nnant; app''ca .s0a
are French in fact, according to NJ,
Andre Beaunier in an article entitled
French Science" in which he cites the
IL
Germany, as some intellectuals pre-
tend. but France, which was the first
to practice these preparatory indus
tries which the frivolous under the
pretense of erudition attributed to the
Germans"
And NJ. Beaunier says: "In 1854 Bar
thelemy wrote Pacciaudi: / doubt that
any people have made such great en-
or hA orn14
was a singular idea to go to Germany
to look for formulas of work the me-
thodical organization of which they al
ready possessed at home. The error
committed has had its consequences
it has caused to be taken as an inven-
ton by our eternal enemy that which
was a French invention confiscated by
the Germans"
claims these inventions 1t is no less
true that Germany has the merit Of
having applied them, and to this fact
is due the creation of ministry Of
the Interior with. a sense of its ex-
IRENE modesty or indifference, and
with the idea of correcting history,
sent to the San Francisco exposition
several hundred volumes. old and new,
which establishes beyond cavil the
seniority. duration and activity of
French science.
Under actual circumstances neither
France. England nor Russia ignores
the fact that if Germany has been able
until now to Withstand the shock of
the superior forces of the entente it is
because of Germanys preparedness and
the superiority in the application of the
resources of science; that technology
in fact. is no less important than the
aid of human material. French sayants
have promptly found the means-the
scientific defense against asphyxiating
gases and inf1ammable liquids-and
there is little doubt that the ministry
of events will discover a defense
against the announced new machine.
1t is sufficient that governments are
now acquainted with the new methods
of warfare that they will apply the
remedy.
1t is interesting to recur to the re-
Elections of the scientists after the war
of 1870. Pasteur. who was
Pasteur's then the grandest and
Rehuke most illustrious of French
savants. categorically at
tributed the disasters to France to the
negligence in which the empire held
scientific studies. In letter to NJ.
Raulin Pasteur said: The veritable
cause of all our troubles is there. We
will recognize. perhaps. some day. very
late. that a great nation has been per-
mitted to go to destruction intellec-