HOW GERMANY CAPTURED THE DYE TRADE

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2767, 10 May 1916, Page 5

HOW GERMANY CAPTURED THE DYE TRADE

.. . : —-» - ■ .■;,■,•- .■ ;; ' : ." ; > It is, perhaps, not very, 'surprising that business men.consulted . % ,by, the, , - .Government in connection with." ths British Dyes.Limited .objected strongly! '' to tie presence of scientific mien on thtf . directorate of the undertaking. If, how« ; ever, former, experience' goes for anyv • thing, this }»lm is likely to end disaiw.;'••.'•; trously. Some very instructive facta bearing on this point have recently been brought forward (says "Engineering"). ' •.: by. trofessor Armstrong, who states .that the firm of Simpson, Mauley andf ' : ",j Nicholson were the leading .manufacture' j ing chemists of their day. All the part* i ners became millionaires, and.the sue*. .■ i cess was duo to the fact that-Nicholson., was a very able chemist. When he ie-> tired the tirm ceased to develop.-It, oi! ..'; its successors, still employed some'very .--- : able chemists, but' these had no control over tho business, policy, and the. end was disaster. At one time their, leading chemist was the late Professor Mel* dola. When he invented his blue, how-; ever, tho firm refused to take it Tip, and • . ; ho accordingly published an. account ol his discovery,' with tho result .that it founded the fortunes of a leading Ger< man. firm. The successor to ; Meldola was Professor Green, who invented in primulin a dye of an entirely new type. This the firm refused to patent, ■ and within a few weeks it was in conse-. ;.-. quenco made in Germany, the whola advantage being lost_ to this country. Quite comparable. incidents have oc- • curred in the history of mechanical engineering in this country; ■ Some 20 or--2o years ago it was by no means uncommon for the management of leading engineering firms to declare that they, would not have a- technical or scientific: man on the premises. We can recall; three instances of this, and the subsc quent history of the threo firms concerned, which were then in tho first) rank, is significant. Of the three, two have failed in the interim, and tho third has not paid a dividend for years. It is in essence the same spirit which classes tho drawing office as a non-pro- - ductivo service. No fallacy is more, fatal, and we havo been much interested lately to hear the engineering director of a leading firm in the metropohtai! area attribute his success to the fad that ho'never employs a" cheap draftsman. Thus only was his,firm able, he said, to compete successfully with lowwaged districts.