BRITISH DYES

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 253, 13 July 1918, Page 10

BRITISH DYES

A VALLEY OF INDUSTRY IMPRESSIONS OF PROGRESS Towards the North of England runs a valley which within living memory might have been called well wooded. Farther back in time it must have been very lovely. Its dimensions are si ill noble and its slopes imposing, but its river is no longer clear, nor do fish live there. But if the romance of Nature has gone, the romance of industry line come to give a modern interest to the whole neighbourhood. Tho works of British Dyes (Limited) now lie along tho the river bank, and form a structure—or ;t congeries of structures—which means much to the commercial future of England. Tlure was already a factory here, and extension w.is contemplated. The locality was favourable for dye-making, in that it offered a supply of suitable water, was near sources of coal and water and crude coal-tar products, had ports within reach to provide access for imported raw materials like iron pyrites and nitrate of soda, and gave facilities for tho distribution of manufactured products. In 1915, having weighed these advantages against those of other places, the company purchased various states of a total area of nearly 500 acres near tho existing works. The first ground wus cut in November of that year, tho construction of a railway from tho old facLory to the main line railway being undertaken as a beginning. To-d.iy the new buildings covfr a very large space. Vast as they are, however, and complete as is the plant installed in them, they do not represent, finality. Tho designs are such as to allow of much conditional construction, which will enable, the company to carry out its schemes for safeguarding the British dyestuff industry, and with it 'the British textile industry, from the monopolosing power of German manufacturers. Neglect in the Past. The history of Germany's control of the dye industry has been often told, but perhaps, even if it were written in every detail, it could not be fully appreciated without a sight of the effort necessary on the part of British enterprise to counteract an enemy success. Germany built up her monopoly by attention to relatively small things, which England disclaimed, or at least neglected to consider. Dyes depend on the manufacture of a large number of intermediate products, which entail complicated and expensive piants. A long series of processes are often needed to make use of these intermediate products, processes so elaborate i hat it has been- estimated that a company would need 85 per cent, of its capital for intermediate product plant. The actual dye-making plant is less costly and complicated than this other. In the past we neglected the intermediate singes, with all ihey included in significance and values, and -wo lost the dve industry. Speaking to a party of journalists who wero shown the works, plant, and processes recently, Jlr. Falconer, M.P., (the chairman of the company), put this tundamental fact of. dye-making very simply, "If," i ie said, "you can secure tho intermediate products, the difficulty of making dyes is comparatively small.'" there is no reason (to quoto the same authority) for fnint-heartedness as to our success in establishing, a manufacture which will compele with supplies from Germany or any other part of the world. We iiavo the raw material and tho scientific and business ability. Under the guidance of Dr. Forsterand other expert associates of the company, the visitors were enabled to realise! the achievements of the British chemist in the research, engineering, and business aspects of the- enterprise. The plant has *ot been erected without difficulty. Handicaps owing to (he war were inevitable. Not was it casyi to tenure an adequato number of trained chemical assistants. Organic chemistry has been studied in Groat Britain only to a limited extent; and the services of competent men were required in munition factories. The hundred trained chemists whom tho company gathered together must bo increased in the future; and to this end arrangements have been made with" universities nnd technical colleges for specific instruction in the chemistry of dyonuiking. The Laboratories. The necessity of research hns been recognised by the building and equipment of large laboratories at tho works, where tho fairy tales of: science are woven in beautiful colours before tho spectator's eyes. Hero tho practical joins hands with the speculative. On tho one hand is the apparatus of research; on the other are models of dye-making plant af convenient size, whereby processus can be thoroughly tested on a semi-manufactur-ing scale before transfer to the works. If in one sense thesa laboratories are both speculative aud practical, in another they are wholly practical, since they are almost), exclusively devoted to research in relation to operations in the works and to plant in course of erection. Owning r.e yet no laboratory for the development oi' research, the company hasvarrauged wi';h the Universities of Oxford, Leeds, and Liverpool for such work to be done there by members of tho ; company's stall tiiwlov \ a carefully organised system of this kind. Something has already been accomplished which will aid the broadly based enterprise to which the company has set its mind and hand. It is a little more than two years since the present development began. Under unfavourable conditions, owing to the war, plants have been completed for making tho essential mineral acids, and for supplying the requisite services to the colour plants. The progress in the manufacture of intermediate products, and in preparing new means for obtaining thorn, is visible in tha piles of building threaded by main roads and byroads, and marked in every point ■ equipment by scientific order and business perception. It is very obviously ; "big thing" which is on hand at the bottom of this geographical cup, whose sides are swelling hills that have looked down in the ages on to many operations of an oddly different kind. But mere size is not the true measure of its magnitude. It strikes one even more forcibly as an example, such as one has too seldom seen in England, of the alliance of science with business—science with its vision for what is and' may be, business with its eyes on the material results o; endeavour. If there is no "up-in-the-clouds" air about the science, there i.no looking on the ground in the business. Such, at any rate, is the impression one gets. The company has not, as the superficial cynic might suggest on hearing of the insistence on the intermediate products, lost sight of main purpose—the bringing of real Engli-ih colour into tho world. AVhilc the vital supply of dye-stuffs has to be maintained! tlio newly-founded means for making the tints needed by the dye-consuming industries are patent to nil who may be allowed to seo. UnforLunately, for the present, the number of theso observers must be small. Otherwise, with a multitude of garnered impressions, the conviction would grow more quickly Hint, if we fnil to recapture tho aniline dye industry, of which we let ourselves be robbed more than si ncore of years ago, it will not be for want of trying.