SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH.

INFLUENCE OF THE WAR.

The application of science to industry is a matter that received too little attention in Great Britain before the war. There were some pre-war movements, however, that should be noted. As early as 1900 the National Physical Laboratory was established, and in 1902 the Imperial Institute was reconstituted and transferred to Government control; but the importance of their work was not generally recognized and their financial support was inadequate. In 1907 the Imperial College of Science and Technology was founded under a royal charter, and in it were merged the Royal College of Science and the Royal School of Mines. But, to quote from an official report, "other machinery and additional State assistance were absolutely necessary in order to promote and organize scientific research with a view to its application to trade and industry, but it needed the shock of war to make the need manifest. The outbreak of war found us unable to produce at home many essential materials and articles. We were making less than a couple of dozen kinds of optical glass out of over a hundred made by our enemies. We could hardly make a tithe of the various dyestuffs needed for our textile industries. * * * We were dependent on Germany for magnetos, for countless drugs and pharmaceutical preparations, even for the tungsten used by our great steelmakers and for the zinc smelted from the ores which our own Empire produced."

ORGANIZATION ESTABLISHED BY GOVERNMENT.

In this situation the Government put forth in July, 1915, a proposed "Scheme for the organization and development of scientific and industrial research," and in accordance therewith an organization was set up by Order in Council under date of July 28, 1915.

At the head of this organization is a Committee of the Privy Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, made up of certain cabinet ministers and several individuals appointed from outside the Government. This committee is a policy-making body. Next is an Advisory Council of scientists, whose function it is to make recommendations as to proposals (1) for instituting specific researches, (2) for establishing or developing special institutions or departments of existing institutions for the scientific study of problems affecting particular industries and trades, and (3) for the establishment and award of research studentships and fellowships.

Under the Advisory Council there are various types of committees. There are advisory standing committees, made up of members half of whom are appointed by the council and half appointed by professional societies; there are research committees and inquiry committees; and there are committees on applications to pass on requests for grants.

At first the work of the committee of council and of the Advisory Council was conducted, for reasons of convenience, under the auspices of the Board of Education; but on December 1, 1919, a separate department was created under a minister directly responsible to Parliament. About the same time the Imperial Trust for the Encouragement of Scientific and Industrial Research was chartered to

hold funds and generally to further the objects of the committee of council.

Several research boards have been established under the Advisory Council, such as the Fuel Research Board, and the Industrial Fatigue Research Board. There is also a Food Investigation Board. These boards generally have to do with fields of research that are unsuited for cooperative action within a particular industry but are necessary for the public good.

METHODS OF WORK.

One of the first steps taken by the new organization was to ascertain the nature and extent of researches then under way, and whether these efforts were likely to be abandoned because of the war. This led to a series of grants to a number of societies. This involved conferences with these societies and with the universities and technical colleges, and the preparation of a register of researches in progress at the outbreak of the war. Surveys were also made of the fields for research in particular industries and also of natural resources-both with helpful results. The needs of the Government departments were also served through special investigations.

PROMOTION OF TRADE ASSOCIATIONS.

Cooperation among the firms in particular industries has been encouraged from the first. To this end the formation of trade associations was promoted, despite "the difficulties of tradition, trade organization, and national temperament which stand in the way of combination." There were some associations already in existence, of course; and some of these had concerned themselves with research; but the movement was a small one and inadequately supported. The reason is not far to seek. Said the Advisory Council:

The average manufacturer is impressed with the importance of quick returns; he can not afford to wait. The managing director of one manufacturing firm recently told us that he had no interest in research which did not produce results within a year. If science can help him to overcome the difficulties that cross his path from day to day, he welcomes her. He wants a handy servant, and not a partner with ideas of her own. * * *

So long as an industry was prosperous it was apt to take short views and felt little enthusiasm for systematic research, especially if the firms it comprised were small, or if the capital engaged had a speculative value on the stock exchange. * * *

The council have sometimes found that manufacturers were unwilling to try new developments because they appeared to lack any ambition for extension so long as their existing plant was fully occupied. A year ago one of the bigger pottery manufacturers at Stoke definitely stated that he saw no reason for spending money on research or attempting new kinds of goods, because his ovens were regularly employed to the full. * * * We think a good deal of the inertia which British manufacturers have shown toward research may have been due to a realization, partly instinctive, perhaps, but partly based on experience, that research on the small scale they could afford was at best a doubtful proposition.

Our experience * * * 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 organization with a view to the conduct of those long and complicated investigations which are necessary for the solution of the fundamental problems lying at the basis of our staple industries. * * * The council are also persuaded that if a healthy condition of inquiry is to be fostered in the scientific industries, they must for some time to come spend a good deal of attention and money upon convincing the manufacturing world in general that scientific research is a paying proposition. They believe that the shortest means to this end is an attack upon the pressing problems of manufacture which arise in the course of the ordinary routine problems which the manufacturers ought, no doubt, to solve by means of their own

scientific staffs, but which their present staffs are too small to undertake, often because the firms are too small to bear the necessary cost.

It was in

this way that the universities of the Middle States of America convinced the farmers that science was useful in agriculture.

Indeed, we recognize fully that unless the generality of British firms can be induced to alter their present attitude we shall have failed profoundly in one of our appointed tasks.

Within two years, however, some 30 trade associations were being organized. This was accomplished largely through a grant of £1,000,000 by Parliament to the Imperial Trust to enable the department "to cooperate with the industries of the country in the foundation and maintenance of approved associations for research during the next five years or so." Once established, it is assumed that these associations will be able to carry on their work without assistance; but during the initial years it is proposed that the contributions of Government money shall equal the subscriptions of the members.

To facilitate the work of organization a model memorandum of association was prepared as a guide to incorporators. As to the constitution of the policy-determining body of such associations, it was recommended that "capital, management, and science must have suitable representation; " also that provision should be made for the inclusion of labor. As a means of encouraging labor cooperation, it was declared that the department would consult the National Government industrial (Whitley) council of an industry, when one existed, before proceeding to establish a research association for that industry.

Provision has also been made for the organization of associations which will receive Government assistance, not in money grants, but in counsel and information from the department:

The department has found in the course of its conversations with leading manufacturers that there is sometimes a certain hesitancy to establish relationship with the Government for the purposes of research, because they fear that the department will interfere in the work of the new associations and will use its powers in such a way as to prevent the results of research from reaching the firms which have subscribed to its cost, or to give the results to competing firms which have not joined or have left the association. In general they seem inclined to believe that they were being invited to submit to a departmental yoke. ** * Our intention is that the associations shall manage their own affairs and benefit by their own discoveries. We believe that the department can help each by keeping it in touch with the work of the rest; that the limitation of Government grants, in all ordinary cases, to a short period of years and the provision under which an association can either forego grants altogether or abandon them at any time are evidences of our intention. If the firms in an industry will undertake research either for themselves or in combination on any other plan which they think better suited to their needs they will as certainly receive the sympathetic consideration of the department and such assistance as is in its power to render.

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PRINCIPLES GOVERNING APPLICATION OF PUBLIC FUNDS. Several methods of financing research have been adopted to meet the needs of the situation. It is recognized that while there is a sort of research which individual firms can find it remunerative to undertake at their own expense, there is another type which can be financed on a cooperative basis, and there is research which must be financed by the State if it is to be done at all. It is all a matter of results. "If the research is one which a single firm can finance and which, if successful, will yield results that a single firm can exploit to the full, there is no case in normal circumstances either for cooperation with other firms or for assistance from the State. The more powerful the

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firm and the greater the variety of its activities, the more far-reaching will be the nature of the research it will be justified in undertaking. But British manufacturing firms are not, as a rule, at the same time both large and complex." Hence the need for cooperative effort. "But when the firms have done all that it will pay them to do in the way of both private and cooperative research, there still remain lines of investigation which will either be sufficiently fundamental to affect a range of interests wider than any single trade, however large, or else they will clearly have a direct bearing on the health, the well-being, or the safety of the whole population. The two types are not mutually exclusive, but research of either kind falls * * * into the third class and must be undertaken by the State itself."

There is still another type of research which it has been considered advisable to promote. That is research in either pure or applied science carried on by individuals, who may or may not be connected with universities, or by individual manufacturers in industries not yet organized on a cooperative basis.

TYPICAL RESEARCHES.

The scope of research undertaken under the auspices of the department can be indicated by the following selected list of general subjects: Laboratory glass, optical glass, hard porcelain, corrosion of nonferrous metals, flow of steam through nozzles, heating of buried cables, properties of insulating oils, and degumming of silk. It can be further indicated by citing some of the publications: English versions of three standard works on optical instruments, bulletins on the decay of timber in coal mines and on cutting lubricants and cooling fluids, a memorandum on the constitution of coal, and reports on mine-rescue apparatus and on the sources and production of ores used in the iron and steel industry.

EMPHASIS ON AMERICAN AND GERMAN PRACTICES.

Naturally enough, considerable attention has been given to industrial research as conducted in the United States and Germany. Indeed, the first of a series of pamphlets entitled "Science and Industry" contained a report on "Industrial Research in the United States of America," while the second contained a description of the research. activities of one of the great American corporations. These were missionary" efforts, designed to arouse the British manufacturers to a realization of the importance of the movement.

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RESULTS.

One of the most significant results of this movement is the breaking down of the spirit of isolation among manufacturing interests and the growing realization of the benefits to be derived through concerted effort. The more tangible results were to be seen in the British Scientific Products Exhibition at London in July, 1919. A report of this exhibition says:

The exhibition is * * * designed to show, and to a very large extent does show, that Britain can be rendered practically independent of products for which we had to rely before the war on foreign countries. * * * The exhibition shows that the * * * manufacturers of this country have found out that they can make all the products formerly obtained from Germany and Austria, and many more.

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PATENTS AND TRADE-MARKS.

INADEQUATE ENCOURAGEMENT FOR INVENTORS.

British patent legislation is designed to foster invention, to make the results available for general use, and to encourage industry within the United Kingdom. There are those who believe that these purposes could be effected more successfully if certain changes were made in the law as it stands. Among these is Sir Robert Hadfield, who maintains that invention is discouraged by excessive fees, by inadequate preliminary search of the patent records, and by the complexity of the rules. He advocates a radical revision of the whole system after the American model, and he gives point to his suggestion by comparing the number of patents taken out in Great Britain and the United States. This suggestion, coming from a man who has taken out several hundred patents in England and abroad, is worthy of attention, but there are no indications that it is likely to be adopted.

ALIEN EVASION OF PATENT LAWS.

Others are concerned with the possibility that foreign inventions patented in Great Britain will be exploited elsewhere without benefit to British industry and perhaps to its positive hurt, despite the compulsory working and compulsory licensing provisions introduced in the law in 1907. Thus the Departmental Committee on the Engineering Trades reported (Mar. 16, 1917):

It is apparent that many patents have been applied for by foreigners, not with the bona fide object of making those patents in this country but for the purpose of securing a monopoly of the British market for goods manufactured abroad by owners of British patents held abroad. The object of the British patents act has been frustrated by securing a monopoly for the foreigner in the United Kingdom without any compensating advantage to British trade. We suggest that the clause of the patents act which requires manufacture within this country should be more stringently enforced, and should refer not merely to nominal manufacture or to the assembling of parts made abroad but to actual manufacture of commercial quantities. It appears to us that manufacture in this country would be best attained if it were possible to define a proportion of the articles to be manufactured under the patent in this country, as against the total import of such article under patents held abroad.

We further think that the clauses of the patents act requiring licenses to be granted might be materially improved by providing some competent body to decide as to the reasonableness of the royalties and of the terms demanded for the grant of such licenses without the expense involved in a reference to the courts. At present the fixing of such royalty depends practically upon bargain with the patentee. If he is desirous of preventing any manufacture under license the terms he may demand will necessarily choke off the intending licensee, who will be reluctant to institute proceedings to get a reasonable rate fixed. The obligation to grant licenses is only enforceable if it can be proved that the patentee has not in fact manufactured in this country. This condition is almost prohibitive so far as the intending licensee is concerned. We suggest that the onus of proving that he has manufactured in this country within the terms of the act should be thrown upon the patentee.

The Departmental Committee on Shipping and Shipbuilding declared (June, 1917):

It is well known that our patent law has been used by our enemies to throttle or to prevent the establishment of certain industries in this country.

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