The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-10-08
WORLD WAR GIVES GREAT IMPETUS ID INVENTIVE GENIUS Science and Industry Work Hand-in- Hand to Improve
 Old-Time Methods COOPERATION NOW
 AVENUE TO SUCCESS Bitter Competition Is Done Away With and All Have Only One Aim,
 the Good of the Empire-Re-
 search Is Encouraged
By Associated Pres.


 London, September 22.-One of the stock arguments of the pacifist at any price Is that war Is destructive of science and industry and sets civili- zation and progress back for years and often for generations. This was true no doubt of past wars, but the effect of the greatest war the world has ever known has been, in England at least, to give such a stimulus to science and industry and especially to science as applied to industry as nothing else could have done.
 It is an old story now how when the war broke out England found her self dependent on foreign countries, and in some cases on enemy countries for essential materials not only Of war but of the industries of peace The world knows how she overcame these difficulties, partly by her com mand of the sea which enabled her to import immense quantities of war ma terial from America and partly by the energy and initiative of her manufac- turers and workers. who were at last walked from the lethargy which had be- come characteristic of British busi- ness.
 AWAKENING PERMANENT
 We are now beginning to learn that this awakening is not merely turn ing over in bed, but is to be perma- nent. The latest evidence of this is an excellent report just issued by the special committee appointed by the privy council in July, 1915, to inves- tigate the state of scientific and in- dustrial research in this country or he ic iy, it's tone, but it lays its finger uner- ringly on England's past weakness and points the way to eliminating the causes. In the opening of the report the committee says;
 War has remained as much an art as ever, but its instruments, original ly the work of the craftsman and artist, are now not only forged by the man of science; they need a scientific training for their effective use. This is equally true of the weapons of in- dustry. The brains, even the very pro- cesses, that today are necessary to the output of munitions were yesterday needed, and will be needed again to- morrow, for the arts of peace This is the central fact which justifies the establishment of the new machinery in the midst of a struggle that Is ab- sorbing the whole energies of the nation in a way no previous war has done"
 SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
 Dealing with the development of scien- tific research caused by the war the committee says:
 "The movement has not been confined to professors and to scientific men; the practical man of business, the manufac- turer and the trader have been as anxious and interested as any. It is not to be wondered at, for they were the first upon whom the significance of a state of war was forced.
 Tn the early months of the war the great steel manupfacturers were in grave danger from the possible exhaustion of the supply of chemical glass necessary for the testing of their materials and pro- ducts. The consulting chemists were in the same case, and the board of educa- ton instituted census of all the chem ical glass available in the educational in- stitutions of the country in view of the possible need for it's acquisition. The in- stitute of chemistry, accordingly, set up a glass research committee under the late Professor Meldola, an original mem- Der of our council, and so enabled Prof. Herbert Jackson to indicate the detailed process of manufacturing number of special glasses, which were rapidly pro- duced by progressive firms"
 Speaking of the reasons for the British business mans apathy towards science the committee says:
 Our experience up to the present leads us indeed to think that the small scale on which most British industrial firms have been planned is one of the principal impediments in the way of the organiza- ton of research, with a view to the con duct of those long and comprcared 1n- vestigations which are necessary for the solution of the fundamental problems iy- ing at the basis of our staple indus tries.
 we have been told by other manu- facturers that the rapid conversion of the business in their trade into limited liabil- ity companies has thrown the control into the hands of salaried works man. agers whose training and experience have been confined to their own industry and who are, therefore, apt to resist pro- posals for improvement. It may well be that this has happened in some trades and that limited liability companies sell dom have the energy, the unity of pur- pose and the quickness of action of a private business But it is possible that these drawbacks though common in com