CHEMICAL SUPREMACY

Hokitika Guardian, 14 December 1923, Page 4

CHEMICAL SUPREMACY

B HIT AIN lII'D’ HOLD IT. What i lie British chemical industry means to the Empire is sol out in a pamphlet issued by the Association n. British Chemical Manufacturers, to which Sir William J. Dope, T.H.S., professor of chemistry in Cambridge (Tiiversiiy, has written a foreword, under the title ‘Shall the State Throw Away the Keys I''’ Air S. \Y. B. AfeCrcgor, sen., B.iiisli Trade Commissioner, who is now on his way to London to discuss mailers in i ’ollllol lion with the F.conomie Conference, reviewed this pamphlet from Ihe British point of view for the monthly journal of the Alclbourno Chamber of Commerce.

Mr Al’Cregor points out that the- Industry is vital to the defence of the Umpire. In heavy chemicals Britain has long stood supreme, hut in the manufacture of tine chemicals, requiring high skill, accumulated experience, and greatly specialised equipment, Cormany. prior to the war, had lie equal. "Fntil 1014 wc had been content to amass wealth by the development ol manv industries in which we were preeminent,” says Air Al'Gregor. “and io leave others to lie exploited by Germany.'' Thus by degrees the German? were enabled to build up one of the best-organised industries the world has seen.

“Probably lew can even yet fully realise the perils which faced us in 1015 and 19111. Entirely imptepnred, we had to rely upon our own ability to improvise. -At the end of the war the position was practically dominated by chemical manufacturing capacity am, 1 abilitv.

“It is of far greater importance to Germany that the British tine chemical industrv should he destroyed than that we should reduce our Army and Navy to microscopical proportions. W e must maintain a flourishing fine chemical industry within the British Empire. The Germans seotf at our efforts to make fine chemicals. British industrial chemists, as well as British academical chemists, can hold their own with thr chemists of Germany or of anv other nation.”