SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH.

HL Deb 15 July 1943 vol 128 cc554-85

VISCOUNT SAMUEL rose to call attention to the need for the further expansion of scientific research, particularly in relation to the utilization of coal; and to move for Papers. The noble Viscount said: My Lords, in the early stages of the present war there was considerable criticism of the failure of the Government to employ adequately in the prosecution of the war the scientific talent available in this country, particularly among the younger men. That defect, however, was remedied without much undue delay, and, when I had the honour of bringing this matter of the assistance of scientists being enlisted in the war before your Lordships' House in April, 1941, we were then already able to say that considerable progress had been made in the right direction. The noble Lord, Lord Hankey, who replied on behalf of the Government on that occasion, made a very full statement, showing that under his leadership, as Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the War Cabinet, considerable progress had been made. On a second occasion, in July, 1942, the same matter, on a Resolution very similar in character, was brought before your Lordships' House by the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, and on that occasion Lord Snell replied in somewhat similar terms.

I now venture to bring the matter before your Lordships' House for the third time, looking rather to the future than to the past or to the present, and urging that a still further extension should be effected in the provision for scientific research. I do so not in a mood of criticism but rather in a mood of welcoming the steps which have already been taken and which are now being taken by the Government. This present Administration is different, I think, from any that have preceded it, in that there are four Ministers holding important posts in the Government who are themselves trained scientists. Sir John Anderson, Sir Stafford Cripps and the noble Lords, Lord Woolton and Lord Cherwell, have all been trained in science in their youth and have scientific degrees, and the last is, of course, a scientist de carrièrs. It is a great advantage that he should be in the Government with a special duty of watching these matters.

Both Houses of Parliament have been taking an increasing interest in this subject. There has been formed a Committee called the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, with the special purpose of keeping a watch on these questions and of making suggestions to both Houses and to the Government. That Committee has now enlisted the support and the membership of 112 members of the other House and 32 members of your Lordships' House, together with no fewer than 35 professional and technical associations belonging to professions and industries concerned with the application of science. This Committee is unique, I think, in the fact that it consists of members of both Houses, together with representatives of institutions of that kind; and it is because it has that dual composition that it is not able to call itself the Parliamentary Scientific Committee, as might be expected, but has the somewhat odd title of Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, which may perhaps have puzzled some of your Lordships who may have noticed this. That Committee is holding frequent meetings. Several Ministers have been good enough to attend meetings and to make statements on the work of their respective Departments. Special sub-committees have been formed to deal with particular questions. It is as one of the officers of that Committee that I venture to speak to your Lordships this afternoon.

This country does not occupy the foremost place in the world in this matter of scientific research. In the United States, besides the part played by the very numerous universities, with their many research departments and their one million students, and besides the work done by such foundations as the Rockefeller Foundation and others, industry itself in America has, I am informed, no fewer than 2,200 research laboratories, employing 70,000 scientists, at a cost of some £60,000,000 a year. Of course, the definition of "scientific research" is uncertain, and the line between research and development is not fixed. Possibly the definitions applied in America are not quite the same as here. It is probable, however, that the expenditure on pure and applied scientific research for the benefit of industry and agriculture is in the United States, with three times our population, ten times the expenditure here.

Nor is this all. There is reason to believe, so far as the facts are known, that before the war both Germany and Russia had considerably larger provision under this head than we had ourselves, and this country occupies, therefore, only the fourth place among the nations of the world. Of course we all know that it is not only the numbers employed in scientific research and the expenditure which is involved which are of ultimate importance, but individual aptitude and successful results are of the first importance. One scientific genius may render greater service than a score or a hundred laboratories, no matter how lavishly endowed; and genius, or even initiative, cannot be commanded or easily evoked. At the same time, the more widespread and active is the effort made by a nation in this regard, the more likelihood that genius and personal initiative will be revealed. Let me draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that the United Nations Conference on Food and Agriculture, which met recently at Hot Springs, and on which we had a debate in this House a few days ago, drew attention to the inadequacy of present knowledge on the subject with which they were dealing, and recommended in their resolutions that each nation should adopt a policy of progressive research in all the branches of science, including economics, which relate to food and agriculture. That highly important and authoritative body, representing forty-four nations, made that very definite pronouncement, and as His Majesty's Government have since announced that they accept the resolutions of the Conference, we may assume that steps will be taken to carry that resolution into effect.

The subjects on which research is needed are of the greatest possible variety. There is agricultural production, and there is very little doubt that science might be enlisted on a far more comprehensive scale in the productive processes of agriculture than has yet been done, either in this or any other country. There is the science of nutrition, which is still almost in its infancy; there is the whole range of preventive and curative medicine. And then, if we turn from the biological field to the material, there is research urgently needed, and to a very moderate extent so far provided, with respect to building. We are to have after the war 4,000,000 new houses built, and many other buildings will have to be erected for schools and other purposes, and the provision for research in materials, construction and equipment is extremely small in this country. There is a Building Research Station which is doing excellent work but, apart from that, little so far has been attempted; and although the architectural profession and those who are interested are taking steps now to promote research into these matters, the progress that has been made is at present wholly inadequate.

Furthermore, there is a new science that has come into being within the last few years, the science of town and country planning, on which the future amenities of this country largely depend. There again the research that is being done is at present very slight. And with respect to the social sciences generally, it is only gradually being realized that there is a great deal there needing research, as well as in the natural sciences. Nuffield College at Oxford has been founded with that object in view; the London School of Economics and Political Science for a good many years past has been labouring in that field as well as in teaching; Chatham House—the Royal Institute of International Affairs—does a certain amount of research work in questions of international politics; and lately the British Association for the Advancement of Science has established a special division devoting its whole attention to this subject.

But the State in all this has hitherto taken too little share, and it is that to which I wish specially to draw your Lordships' attention and the attention of the Government, in the hope that the whole question will be viewed on a much more generous scale than has been the custom in this country hitherto. The several Departments of the Government have taken but slight action as a rule. The Town and Country Planning Ministry has a research branch which has only just started its work. When I was at the Local Government Board before the last war—as long ago as that—there was established there an Intelligence Department precisely in order to investigate these questions of planning and building, and also some questions of health to which I have referred. That section was doing useful service when war came, but it was allowed afterwards to fall into abeyance, and I believe disappeared. The Colonial Office at the present time is showing much energy in this regard. There is a Colonial Research Advisory Committee under the Chairmanship of one of the members of your Lordships' House, Lord Hailey, than whom a more admirable Chairman could not be found; and there is also the Colonial Products Research Council which has lately been established. Oxford University again is founding a special department to deal with Colonial studies. I commend to your Lordships' attention this whole vast range of subjects on all of which more research is needed. It is not only a question of chemistry and physics, but of these various branches of what I may call the humane sciences, which also require attention.

In the terms of the Motion which I have brought before your Lordships' House I have made special mention of the utilization of coal, and I have done so partly because the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee to which I have referred has lately been giving very intensive attention to this particular matter. It appointed a sub-committee which held many meetings, took much advice, and issued a very elaborate report, which has received favourable attention from the Press, both the national Press and the technical Press, although no doubt also some criticism. Apart from agriculture, coal is, of course, the chief material source of the country's prosperity, it is the main source for the production of mechanical power. Hydro-electric schemes such as that which we have been again discussing at very considerable length this afternoon, may provide some additional sources, and the Severn Barrage, which was discussed in your Lordships' House a few weeks ago, may do the same, but those can only provide a fraction of the energy which is required, and the day is not yet come when we can turn to sub-atomic energy as an alternative to coal. Every physicist would say that that is theoretically possible, but it is far from being practically accessible. Furthermore, coal is a raw material for the chemical industry; dyestuffs, drugs, fertilizers, plastics, silks—all kinds of things are now made from products of coal.

The Royal Commission on the Coal Industry of 1925–26, with which I was connected, came very soon to the conclusion that this question of research was the most important of all those that came before us. As a rule the problems of the coal industry were considered to be those of the relations between capital and labour, the organization of the mines, the ownership of the minerals, the transport of the coal, the export trade, and matters of that kind; but very early in our inquiry we came to the conclusion that more important than any one of these was the question of the proper utilization of this complex and precious material. For thousands of years man has been digging in the ground and getting out coal and burning it raw in furnaces or fireplaces. It is only in recent times that it has been realized that that is an exceedingly crude method of dealing with it. The Royal Commission said this in their Report: In view of the great importance of coal to this country, it is surprising that so little scientific attention has been paid to its nature and possibilities.

When we came in the last page to express our final summary of recommendations as the result of long and very intensive inquiry, we wrote this: The way to prosperity for the mining industry lies along three chief lines of advance. We put first the greater application of science to the winning and using of coal; the others were larger units of production and distribution, and fuller partnership between employers and employed. That was seventeen years ago, and much, happily, has been done since then. The State has established the National Fuel Research Board, the coal industry has its British Colliery Owners' Research Association, and there is the British Coal Utilization Research Association, which is now working on a large scale and with considerable resources. That Association includes representatives of the chemical and other consuming industries. The gas industry and the electrical industry are also conducting research into their special branches on a very large scale. The Royal Commission also recommended—what was indeed very obvious—that the heat, light and power requirements of the country should be considered as a whole. That was seventeen years ago, but only last year was that recommendation fully implemented by the establishment of the Ministry of Fuel and Power. That Ministry is already engaged in superintending, coordinating, and providing for the expansion of research into all branches of the fuel and power industries. How far it has done so perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Cherwell, who is to reply, will think fit to tell us and also indicate the plans the Government may have for the future.

Turning back to research in general, as apart from the coal industry in particular, I should like to make a few observations on the conditions of employment and the status of the research workers themselves, which is a matter of great importance. There is a Russian proverb which says: "The nightingale does not live on songs alone." Similarly, a scientist, however great may be his devotion to his profession, has to consider his remuneration and his prospects. There is reason to believe that in many cases the salaries paid to scientific workers are far from adequate, and opportunities for promotion are frequently lacking. It is said that the best years for a scientific research worker are between the ages of thirty to forty, and that after that his powers of improvization or initiative seem somewhat to wane.

On the other hand, administrative offices can well be filled by men of rather older age who are glad to accept wider responsibilities with the better salaries that accompany them. It is frequently found by the scientists that once engaged in research they have very little opportunity of being allowed to transfer to the administrative branches which may give them better prospects. Of course, the most brilliant scientist is not therefore even a moderately good administrator. In fact, very often the two qualities are not to be found in the same person. On the other hand, often he can prove to be so if the opportunity is given to him. No one urges that high scientific attainments are in themselves a qualification for administrative posts but, at all events, they ought not to be regarded as a disqualification, as is sometimes now found to be the case. There is the further class of scientific assistants whose interests have not been adequately safeguarded frequently in the employment in which they arc engaged. For both classes questions of pensions arise which have received all too little attention. If a research worker transfers from the laboratory of some industrial firm to a university laboratory or to a Government or Colonial laboratory, his position with regard to his pension may be seriously prejudiced.

I should like to ask the Government if they would answer some, or all, of these questions which I now address to them, and of which I have given my noble friend Lord Cherwell some preliminary notice. First, whether there is any plan for allocating the work of scientific research between the three main agencies now engaged in it—namely, the State, the Universities, and the industries. Next, whether anything can be said at this stage with regard to the conditions of employment of those engaged in this profession, and particularly whether there is any possibility of a combined scheme for pensions which will enable accrued pension rights to be transferred if a worker passes from one institution to another such as has been done between different Colonial Governments in the case of Colonial administrators and also, in a different sphere, in the case of members of the Police Force of one area transferring to another. These combined pension schemes are of great importance to the well-being, and therefore to the efficiency, of these workers.

Next, is there any prospect of a State scientific service being established parallel to the Civil Service and under the general direction of a Commission like the Civil Service Commission, but containing several, perhaps a majority, of professional scientists? Then, would such a State Service, if established, have a class in it corresponding to Class 2 of the Civil Service for those who are employed as scientific assistants? Next—a point I raised when I brought the matter before the House two years ago— have the Government considered the advisability, after the war, of appointing scientific attachés to the principal Embassies abroad in order that this country may have liaison officers who can bring to the notice of those interested at home the progress and methods which have been achieved or established in other countries?

I come now to the question of expense. Obviously very vast sums will be involved in a programme such as I have endeavoured to indicate. Many of the installations are exceedingly costly. For example, aerodynamics requires those great wind tunnels which cost a great deal, but without which our Air Force would certainly not have achieved the successes it has attained. The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, in building now many years ago the great wind tunnel at its laboratories at Teddington, was of immense assistance to our aircraft industry in its early days. Such an instrument as the new electron microscope is also an extremely expensive thing to manufacture. Experimental fuel research stations cost a great deal of money, and building research would no doubt be expensive. In all these directions it is certain very large sums must be engaged. I know that at present money is not the limiting factor. The Government are willing to spend all that is necessary on research needed for the conduct of the war. The limitation now is deficiency of personnel, which is due to inadequate provision for scientific and technical education in days gone by and cannot now be remedied. But when the war is over there may be somewhat greater stringency in financial matters and more reluctance to spend, and I would impress upon your Lordships that it would be a very shortsighted policy if such tendencies were to be allowed to gain the upper hand.

Whatever money is needed for research can be found in spite of the enormous claims in other directions in view of the fact, which I have previously pointed out on other occasions in this House, that the national income is known to have multiplied three-fold during the present century. That allows a very great margin for additional State expenditure in this and other directions. Furthermore, there is no expenditure more remunerative than this if it is wisely directed. The nation is spending on coal alone, to revert to that example, about £360,000,000 a year on the raw mineral and as much again in processing and treatment for production of energy and for various chemical compounds. Altogether about £750,000,000 a year is spent upon coal in one way or another so that any economies that can be effected in the use of coal by its better utilization might be extremely remunerative.

In that respect a great deal has been done. In the year before the last war the amount of the potential energy in coal which was utilized in British industries was only 15 per cent. and 85 per cent. was lost. In the year before this war the effective extraction of energy from the coal was double and was raised to 30 per cent. Some industrial installations have achieved even 60 per cent. so that there is an immense margin there within which progress can be made if research were successful in carrying this process further. Of course the more that is done the more difficult it is to achieve yet more, but if research does succeed in carrying this process further the annual saving that might be effected on the total expenditure upon coal and processing of £750,000,000 a year would not be a question of one or two million pounds but of tens of millions of pounds, and conceivably even of the order of hundreds of millions of pounds. If that could be done any programme of research, even though its cost might be regarded at the outset as extravagant, would be fully justified.

Research is the seed of industry. Much of it will not germinate, but unless it is sown there will be no harvest. Any agriculturist who practised economy by lowering the quality or cutting down the quantity of his seed would obviously be a very incompetent farmer. The success of this country and indeed of the whole Commonwealth—for in this matter we serve all the Dominions as well as ourselves—in world competition is really at stake. The economic foundations of our civilization are changing with extreme rapidity. I came across a statement recently quoted from Sir Thomas Holland, one of our leading mineralogists, which was to this effect. Far more metal has been taken from the earth by man since 1900 than in the whole of the previous history of mankind. It seems an astounding statement that in forty years more metals should have been required in the industries of the globe than in the previous forty centuries of recorded civilization. Those metals are of course used in all kinds of new alloys and put to all kinds of new uses.

This one fact alone is an indication of the extent to which the industries of man are now developing. Furthermore, new synthetic substances unknown to nature are being created for the first time. Already numbered in scores they may soon be numbered in hundreds. In this situation this country cannot rely on the advantages of its geographical position or on the natural resources in the competition in which it is engaging. The British people have to pit their character and brains against the character and brains of the other industrial nations of the world. On the knowledge and efficiency of our engineers and chemists and agriculturists and on the excellence of our social organization all depends. In touching these matters we touch the essence of national prosperity and strength and welfare.

Moved, That there be laid before the House Papers relating to the further expansion of scientific research, particularly in relation to the utilization of coal.— (Viscount Samuel.)

THE EARL OF LISTOWEL

My Lords, speaking for myself and my noble friends on these Benches I should like to support unreservedly the plea for more Government support to scientific research to which we have just listened from the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel. I think all will agree that this is not the least of the great services he has already rendered in this field. There is no need to emphasize the supreme importance to industry of technical efficiency. It is not too much to say that full employment and better conditions of life after the war largely depend on our capacity to modernize industrial equipment and processes and to improve the quality and quantity of their output. For many years over the whole field of industry we have been failing to keep abreast of the times. Before the war America was turning out two and a half times as much coal, three times as much machinery, four times as much iron and steel, four times as many motor cars and five times as many radio sets for every man employed in those industries as we were in this country. Our industrial plant, which fifty years ago was ahead of the whole world, has already lost the lead to the United States, and even to Germany. A large part of it that was operated before the war had become completety archaic and might well have been consigned to the scrap heap or to an engineering museum.

The coal-mining industry is a moving illustration of our shortcomings. The cutting of coal from the seam and the conveying of coal from the coal face to the pit shaft are only 55 per cent. mechanized in this country as compared with 80 per cent. in America and 98 per cent. in Belgium and the Ruhr. The noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, has just referred to the recommendation that his Commission made as to the vital importance of technical efficiency in the coal-mining industry for the prosperity of all those concerned in the production of coal. For various reasons, most of which obviously I cannot enter into now, we continued to carry on before the war under a heavy burden of obsolete and obsolescent machinery. One reason—the only reason I propose to discuss—was the lack of trained research workers and of adequate apparatus and equipment for research. We were spending far less from public and private sources together proportionately to our national income on the development of scientific and industrial research than several of the other great industrial nations. I do not labour that point because it has been referred to by my noble friend Lord Samuel, but that is an indication of the degree to which we have lost the lead in this respect.

The war, of course, has quickened the tempo of research and has brought about a drastic overhaul of out-of-date machinery in industry engaged in war production. Output has already risen by leaps and bounds as a result of this sudden improvement in technical efficiency. But organizing production and research for the war-time requirements of the Services sets up an industrial structure very different from what will be needed to meet the post-war demand of a population long starved of consumers' goods. This does not mean that the immense progress made in the technique of war should not be maintained and as far as possible improved upon by research. We must surely never again after this war allow our Fighting Services to lack weapons as destructive and up to date as those of any other military Power, and this eventuality can only be guarded against by continuing to employ trained scientists and skilled engineers, and elaborate and expensive apparatus in the primary task of national defence.

The change-over to peace-time production will, nevertheless, involve the scrapping of much obsolete or useless plant, the adaptation of much machinery to a different type of output and the installation of a vast quantity of completely new industrial equipment. This re-tooling of considerable sections of British industry, on which its competitive power and productive capacity will depend, cannot, I suggest, be successfully carried out without a reasonably long period of careful scientific preparation. During this preparatory period it should be possible to improve design, to experiment with new materials and methods, and to refine and develop ordinary manufacturing processes. The period of incubation should begin soon, certainly before the end of the war—exactly when I do not think anyone but the Government is in a proper position to judge.

The scope of the research undertaken will, no doubt, cover the whole field of industry, but there are certain directions in which its encouragement will be specially beneficial to the public and in which therefore the Government should do all in their power to help. I am referring in particular to the aircraft industry, the building industry and the coalmining industry. If we are to hold our own with other countries in the air—this is a remark I make not for the first time —we must certainly have the latest types of civil and military machines. The Society of British Aircraft Constructors, which speaks for every important air-frame and engine-building company, wants more assistance from the Government for aeronautical research. The apparatus of research is increasingly costly, and it is unreasonable to expect the industry to shoulder the burden alone. Their appeal, I think, was handsomely answered by the noble Lord, Lord Cherwell, when he replied to the debate initiated by the noble Marquess, Lord Londonderry, on Tuesday. Nothing could be more satisfactory than the Government's intention to establish a school of aeronautical science which may one day become the focal centre for teaching and research for the whole of the British Commonwealth. I hope there will be no delay in preparing the ground. A plan should be drawn up in time for immediate execution the moment personnel and equipment are available.

I now come to the second of the subjects into which research is specially necessary from the point of view of the public. We shall not be able to build flats and cottages after the war which the average wage-earning family can afford without extreme hardship unless we succeed irr cutting down building costs. Housing will continue to be a distressing and insoluble social problem so long as we have not learnt to build cheap homes with modern standards of comfort. Between the wars, I think it is agreed, neither private enterprise building for profit nor local authorities buttressed by subsidies, supplied this prime need. Since 1939 building costs have approximately doubled and it is common knowledge—the subject has been discussed in your Lordships' House—that at the present moment rural cottages are going up at something like £1,000 apiece. Unless prices fall considerably in the meantime —an extremely unlikely event—we shall be paying a prohibitive sum for the erection of working-class dwellings after the war.

I think the only final solution, although it may be unattainable for the time being, is for cheap houses to be produced like cheap motor cars, by mass production in factories. We shall have to invent a material which is inexpensive to produce and having the qualities of bricks and mortar and other materials used in building, which can be applied to the largescale manufacture of structural parts. These could be rapidly assembled on the site, like the separate parts of a merchant ship, in a modern shipyard. Prefabrication has not yet achieved success because the perfect material has still to be discovered. Here again we should take to heart what has been going on recently in America. There they are building houses with every modern convenience at the fantastic speed of 1,000 a month and using labour to the extent of only 340 man hours per house. In this country the same speed and quality of building would require at least 2,000 man hours per house.

LORD BRABAZON OF TARA

Did the noble Earl say that 1,000 houses per month was an extraordinary production?

THE EARL OF LISTOWEL

At that expenditure of labour because the cost is kept down by this tremendous economy. The Committee for the Industrial and Scientific Provision of Housing comments as follows upon the wide disparity revealed between this country and America: This rate and standard of construction was made possible by years of research, with which the amount and quality of research done in this country do not compare. Again the meagre and inadequate facilities in this country for experiment and research in building was emphasized by the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel. The building industry cannot be expected to underwrite experiments of this kind. Progress can only be made in this field by the initiative of the Government and with the support of the Treasury. I suggest that the time has come for the Minister of Works to have his own research institute working in close collaboration with the industry and staffed by whole-time chemists and constructional engineers. I am afraid we shall never get what we want if we have to rely exclusively on the efforts of private firms and individuals.

My noble friend Lord Samuel has delved very deeply into coal and I do not think there is much I or anyone else could add. There can be no doubt that we are wasting an immense quantity of coal in smoke, grime and ashes and often as much as 70 per cent. of the raw fuel, because we are failing to get the maximum potential energy released by its combustion. We simply cannot afford to go on wasting at this rate the prime source of power for our railways, public utilities and basic industries and of heat and light for our homes. It is no less true that coal should be regarded as a raw material as well as a source of energy and that we have scarcely begun to explore its possibilities as a purveyor of chemicals and liquid fuels. I am sure we shall all look forward to hearing the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord McGowan, and we shall listen with keen interest to anything he has to say on that subject. What counts even more in the minds of the general public is the chance science gives us of dispelling the grey pall of smoke that has enveloped our large industrial towns for the last hundred years. The medical evidence submitted to the Barlow Commission shows how a smoky atmosphere accelerates the ravages of respiratory diseases and, by intercepting the actinic lays of bright sunlight, increases the incidence of rickets among town children. More important still is the present opportunity of putting an end to the age-long tyranny of coal and coke fires over the housewife. We would give the housewife a new lease of life by releasing her from the daily drudgery of lighting them, keeping them going and constantly removing the layer of dirt they spread over everything in the house.

The bare essentials of the sort of programme I think the Government should adopt to guarantee our industrial future are three-fold. It should promote a gradual but steady increase in existing facilities for scientific research into the post-war problems of industry, an expansion that should include the research workers and the scientific equipment of universities, private firms and Government institutions. Secondly, to prevent overlapping and to secure the right priorities—that is exceedingly important—these extended facilities should be co-ordinated and developed according to a national plan for scientific research. And lastly, it should arrange for consultation and cooperation with the Dominions and Colonies, and, so far as possible, with our fellow members of the United Nations at every stage of what will be, I trust, a national drive for the enlargement of scientific knowledge and a rapid advance in technical efficiency.

LORD MCGOWAN

My Lords, your Lordships will I am sure be very grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, not only for initiating this debate, a debate on a matter of supreme importance to this country, but also for calling our attention to directions in which research ought to be applied. As he truly said, coal is our great national asset. It possesses an infinite variety of potentialities which can only be discovered and their use applied by expenditure on research. We know of many derivatives, and while I cannot give any details of what my company is doing in that direction, I can assure your Lordships that one of the problems most prominently before us is how best to use coal to meet the country's needs. I am delighted that the Government have agreed to a grant of £5,000,000 for research on coal to be spent over a period of years. That was a splendid gesture, but I feel; in my own mind, that, in course of time, that sum will be found to be wholly inadequate for the purpose we have in view and that further financial grants must be given. One cannot, as the noble Lord has said, visualize the possibility of the spending of more than sufficient money on research on our great national asset.

While I direct my remarks to science in its relation to industry, I mean that to be all-embracing apart from coal. The social and industrial progress, health, transport, housing, in fact the well-being of our people in every direction, are dependent upon the advancement of knowledge which alone can be obtained by what is generally known as research. "Research" is a term somewhat loosely used, and it cannot be too frequently or too strongly stressed that all the work that goes on in a laboratory cannot be described as research. The testing of raw materials and of finished products, and the testing of all that is going through a plant from day to day, cannot be described as research. It is ordinary routine work. Well, what is research? Research might be described as reaching out into the unknown, and it might be classified as follows: (1), investigations to discover new products and new processes; (2), research on existing processes with a view to finding new and simplified ways of manufacture and the discovery of better raw materials—this is to increase our competitive power—and (3), fundamental research.

Let me take these in their order. For some years before the war partly in order to satisfy national aspirations and to be more self-contained in certain things wanted for their industrial and social life, a number of countries abroad were pursuing a policy of economic nationalism. Due to the war those countries abroad that had imported manufactured goods from this country and South America or, I suppose, even from Germany before the war, have since had to do without those goods. And it is, I think, a fair assumption that the Argentine, Brazil, Australia and other countries who have found themselves in that plight will say: "Never again." Then we must not overlook the fact that in Canada, Australia and India many factories have been erected to help in the prosecution of the war. Again, I suggest, it is a fair assumption that those countries will do all they can to keep these factories occupied on peace-time activities when that time comes round. That suggests a reduction, a gradual reduction, in our export trade. This will be a slow process, but while the present is not the appropriate time or occasion to give my reasons, I am not discouraged. Given a long-continued era of peace there will be, in my opinion, for years to come a great and expanding world demand for manufactured goods; and history demonstrates that there are always buyers for new products.

While we still have a great bargaining power, I feel strongly that if we want to hold and increase our export trade there must be intensive research to find new processes and new products. We shall have to find entirely new products as alternatives or substitutes for some now in use. We have a background of scientific, manufacturing and technical knowledge in this country comparing favourably with the older highly-industrialized countries and much superior to that of the newer countries, and it is for us to use that and do what we can to fill up the lag when we find in course of years those countries industrialized far more than they are to-day. It can be done but, I repeat, only by spending money on research. Research on existing processes is day-to-day work, never ending, and accumulated knowledge creates of its own accord considerable industrial advances. This kind of research is intended to produce greater efficiency, making for lower costs and thus enabling is to compete with the products of other countries.

I should like to say a word on fundamental research. This aspect of research is far more a function of the scientific side of our universities, although I do not overlook Government research stations, which do much useful work between the efforts of industry and the universities. Much has been said in recent years, as the noble Viscount has mentioned, with regard to the disproportionate effort made in this country as compared with America, and, before the war, as compared with the Continent, by universities abroad, both in research and in teaching. Do not let us be led away into framing a policy which will lead to the overcrowding of our universities with scientific students of the wrong calibre, and the overburdening of professors and teachers or of the academic facilities existing at any one time. But, however fine our scientific effort may be in quality, we cannot completely disregard the size of the effort of our competitors. I think it will be agreed that there is still much to be done in extending scientific academic facilities, and, indeed, on a lower grade, technical schools. Here is a great opportunity for Government assistance, and I can think of no better investment for the nation than the constant encouragement of scientific development in our universities and technical schools.

While this is an opportunity for Government assistance, I feel strongly that industry has also a big part to play. For a few years past, industry in this country has enjoyed protection against imports of foreign manufactured goods, and it cannot, therefore, escape its responsibility to the State for taking every step to ensure that it is efficient. That is one of the reasons why industry must play its part in encouraging scientific developments in our universities and technical schools. It is all-important that, in science, industry and the universities should keep in close touch with each other to avoid a separation between the practical and the academic worlds, and to keep industry abreast of the general trend of academic thought. Much good must result from mutual discussion. It is useless having a sufficient number of scientists for the purposes which we have in view unless they possess the necessary equipment. Such equipment and apparatus must be in sufficient quantity, and be continually kept up to date. Here again I plead for industry doing its part by means of financial grants.

Research, and particularly fundamental or academic research, is ultimately dependant on the quality of the men turned out by the universities, and whether or not their careers are made attractive will depend on the way in which these men are treated after they have been to universities, and on the scope and liberty which are given to them to follow the dictates of their own abilities and ambitions. It is clear to me that the ablest and best types of men will not be attracted to the study of science if a system is allowed to exist in which the highest positions, including the best administrative posts, are closed to men with a technical education. There are two types of individual; there is one type suited to make research his sole career, and the other who is highly suitable to function on the administrative side of great enterprises. Those men who make research their career are essential to advancement and development in the commercial world, and should not feel that they are being treated as in any way second-rate. They should have a status and be rewarded financially in an appropriate manner.

The Government have not been blameless in this matter, for the rewards offered by them on the technical side have been, on the whole, less than those offered by the universities and by industry—not that industry has much to be proud of. I hope that the noble Lord who is to reply for the Government will give us an assurance that the Government intend to make such administrative regulations as will open the highest administrative posts to those who have shown themselves fit for such work, and to provide that there will no longer be any discrimination, either in remuneration or in promotion, between the administrative and technical branches —which means, briefly, between those who have received a classical and those who have received a technical education. As long as this bar is maintained, so long will the Government fail to recruit the most able scientific brains to its service.

There is one further aspect of the organization of research on which I have not yet touched. It is the form of industrial research undertaken not by a private firm but by an association of firms, commonly known as an industrial research association. These bodies can be of the utmost value in developing the technique of their respective industries, and especially of those industries where the units are numerous and relatively small, and where no single unit is in a position to create a research installation on a suitable scale for the work to be undertaken. Many such associations are already in being, and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research has done splendid work in fostering them and encouraging them by every means in its power. This system of research can no doubt play a large part in future development, but it needs to go a very long way before we can be in the least degree satisfied that it is up to the standard required by modern conditions.

It is of vital interest both to the nation as a whole and to industry that in dealing with such problems, the Government research agencies should be of the highest quality, and should be endowed with the fullest possible facilities. I should like to say here that I think that a proper distinction must be drawn between research work which is properly the object of industrial effort and that which should be undertaken by the Government. I shall give two examples of the kind of research that should be done by the Government. The first is the gasification of coal underground as an alternative to extraction. One is told that some progress has been made in regard to this matter in Russia. I am not in a position to say whether, even if it is successful there, with their great thickness of seams, it could be applied here, but, if it is decided that this problem shall be studied, it is for the Government and not for industrialists to undertake the work. I cannot imagine any private firm or any association of private firms which would be prepared to do this work and see it through to the end, when the commercial advantages are so obscure. Secondly, we all know the importance of potash to the agricultural industry in this country, and the importance of indigenous supplies of potash in time of war is too obvious to need to be emphasized. In Yorkshire it is known that there are great deposits, the first to be discovered in this country on any large scale. Their only merit is that of being indigenous; apart from this, they would not appear to have any prospect of competing with the well-known Continental deposits, which are far more extensive and far richer.

In research in this country everything should be done to prevent overlapping, which results in waste of time and money, and it would be a considerable deterrent to industrial research if Government research stations are used, with all the power and influence of the Government behind them, and endowed with the taxpayers' money, to compete with industrial research institutions. There are bound to be many border-line cases, but they can be straightened out with good will. Many of your Lordships have no doubt had your attention drawn to a current issue of the journal of the Royal Society of Arts, in which there is a report of a lecture on "Science in Soviet Russia" which was delivered under the chairmanship of the Minister of Aircraft Production. The lecturer, Dr. Crowther, stated that under the existing organization of science in Russia scientists who make great discoveries are rewarded with prizes amounting in some cases to as much as £10,000 and that about 100 prizes are awarded annually for science and inventions. Does not this suggest that we in this country should consider whether rewards for scientific discoveries are sufficiently generous?

I do not wish to take up any more of your Lordships' time in discussing this vital and fascinating problem. It is a subject on which one would speak at very great length, especially if one went into the technical possibilities which we now see opening out before us; they are legion. From the privileged position from which I am able to observe this part of human activity I can see vast opportunities and great potentialities on earth, in the air and on the water for mankind to obtain the benefits of a fuller and freer life through the constant expansion of our knowledge. There may be some who will complain that the technical advance of the last century and the first part of this has brought no benefit to mankind and only further problems and grief. To people who think on these lines I have little to say. Under proper control I believe that the expansion of knowledge and the development of our technical ability bring benefits to the mass of mankind which far outweigh their disadvantages. Summed up, by scientific discoveries and their proper application we shall witness in time a gradual uplift in the standard of living throughout the world—surely a noble and desirable object. We are proud of the contribution of science to Great Britain's war effort and if we see a continued association between science and industry, and if we embrace the opportunities we see before us, we shall face the future with every confidence.

LORD BRABAZON OF TARA

My Lords, I think it was wise of the noble Viscount, Lord Samuel, when he was raising this question of the lack of scientific research and development, to link it up with the coal situation, because when one looks at the vast fortunes that have been made in this country from coal and the extraordinarily little attention that has been given to the scientific side of it, it is nothing short of amazing. If you take an ordinary lump of coal to-day and give it to a scientist he is quite incapable, until he burns it, of telling you whether it is coking or non-coking coal. That is an extraordinary situation to be occurring to-day. Take the question of dirty coal. You can take the coal away from the dirt, but so far you cannot take the dirt away from the coal—an extraordinary thing. There is a lot to be done there.

But I do hope that in a debate of this type we are not going to muddle up development and technical progress with scientific research because they are two entirely separate things, as has been well said by my noble friend the great industrialist speaking from the Bishops' Benches to-day. We have had a lot of speeches deprecating the record of British science. It is the usual thing we do in this country. We praise Germany, we praise America, we praise everybody as being scientific-minded and run ourselves down. We in this country may understand it, but they do not understand it in other countries. But the record does not show that we are behindhand in fundamental research. The Cavendish Laboratory to-day stands out as a beacon of light throughout the whole world, and it is ridiculous for Lord Samuel to say that we are fourth-rate in science.

VISCOUNT SAMUEL

I did not say fourth-rate. I said in the provision for research in general we occupied the fourth place.

LORD BRABAZON OF TARA

That will very soon be interpreted in the popular Press throughout the world—not perhaps in our accurate Press, but in other countries—as being fourth-rate. No, that sort of thing will not do. And when you come to the great steps in scientific advance, was not matter in a new state discovered by Crookes—a purely fundamental discovery which was later to be turned into the great wireless development of the world? Was not the electron, its mass and charge, determined by the great J. J. Thomson at Cambridge, which upset the whole conception of atomic structure and electricity altogether? Those are great names and there will be other great names in this country because pure science, fundamental research, is not to be done by quantity but by quality. And I believe it is in this country that you will find the quality in the future as you have in the past.

I wanted to raise a question which to me is rather worrying. The great Royal Society, the venerable Royal Society, which after all is the premier scientific society in the world and to belong to which is one of the greatest honours in the world, chooses its Fellows from the many subjects which scientific specialists indulge in. Now this is one of the troubles I see in the scientific world to-day. Science is so complicated that if you are to be distinguished in any walk you have to be an ultra-specialist, you have to go right along the line to the end, whatever it may be, to be distinguished in that line of thought. Consequently, you get working throughout the country in these watertight compartments, as it were, supermen but you are unable to relate the discoveries in the various walks of life together. I want to know what machinery is going to be invented soon to get these together.

Let me quote two examples. Atomic physics and astronomy have, curiously enough, got together. You would think that there was very little relation between those two, but they have worked together in a most extraordinary way. It might not seem a great advantage to you to know what the structure of the sun or of a star is, but sure enough with the spectroscope a very close liaison between the microscopic world and the macroscopic world has taken place. With the great advance in sub-atomic physics there are new things growing up which are understood by the physicists, but are they understood by the other scientists? Lord Samuel, very rightly I think, referred to the electron microscope, a very remarkable discovery. Now does the doctor realize the possibilities of that on the diagnosis of the great viruses? It seems to me that we have got almost to breed a new type of scientist, a gentleman who can bring the knowledge of a lot of different branches together and correlate them. It is quite true that in the old days Faraday could go round to the Royal Institution and, with a piece of copper wire, acid and a magnet, could make the great discovery that led to electro-magnetism. Those days arc past, and we do see, I think, in America the great advantage from huge State funds being poured out on scientific objects which can make these enormous and expensive machines like the cyclotron.

But above all, it is important for someone to understand and correlate these discoveries, how they butt in, for instance, into therapeutics—whether, for instance, radium has any influence on cancer. At present we really know very little. If I was starting life again I certainly should start with being a biochemist. There is more to be done there than in any other branch of science, but it must be related to the physical discoveries of the day. We have various people who have general knowledge. In spite of Lord Samuel's gloomy philosophy I would put him down as a man with a general knowledge of science, and I certainly would include the Lord Chancellor, who very frequently pretends to be ignorant on many subjects about which he knows a tremendous lot. The noble Lord, the late Lord Balfour, was another. I should like the Royal Society to get such men together within their portals, because at present they are getting only specialists, and if we do not look out we shall defeat what is after all the prime object of science, which is the benefit of the human race.

LORD GEDDES

My Lords, I speak rather unexpectedly at this particular juncture in the debate as Lord Dawson of Penn was to have spoken after my noble friend who has just sat down, but I am very glad that through the circumstances which have arisen I am able to speak immediately after Lord Brabazon because so many of the things which he has said were those which I was preparing to say. It is absolutely true that in this country we have had now for many years the best fundamental men of science. I know of no country with a record even beginning to approach that of this island. Both in the north and in the south, in Scotland and in England, we have had a most extraordinary series of great men of science. We have an enormous trade and commerce. We have great enterprises overseas, and these activities seem to have been carried on very largly without any very great or close contact with science until recent years.

In the fifteen years before the war, as some of your Lordships are aware, I was engaged in taking my share in the development of the Northern Rhodesian Copper Belt. There we had every sort of problem to meet, not fundamental research, but to apply knowledge in order to get more knowledge. First of all, we had to make that portion of Rhodesia habitable by Europeans. We next had to see that the native population was healthy, fit, strong, and able to endure manual work. We had to explore the possibilities of growing food of sorts that had never been grown in that part of the world before in order to secure health both for the European and African populations. Then we had an unlimited series of scientific problems in connexion with the actual geological study of the country. In addition to that there were masses of completely new problems in regard to mining and in connexion with dealing with subterranean water. Then we had a whole series of problems dealing with the ores, which are quite peculiar, and then, finally, we had a mass of problems in connexion with the actual metallurgy, both on the copper side, to get good conductivity, and on the cobalt side in order to get a knowledge of the full use of the metal, which has proved so valuable in connexion with aircraft and munitions generally.

To cover all that research work locally, because it was local research work, although it was carried on to some extent in this country too, we required an enormous number of men with scientific training. We could get some in this country, but the majority we could not. There was no question of any inadequacy in remuneration. We were offering large pay. We just could not get the men from this country for that work in anything like sufficient numbers. We finally got our geologists very largely from Canada and partly from the United States. We got as many miners as we possibly could from the Royal School of Mines, but we could not get enough. We had to go to Canada and the United States and to a less extent to Australia. We could not get the metallurgical people here at all. We offered men working in metallurgy large sums of money to go out for a year. They were fully employed here. We could get the highest advice here, but we could not get the men.

So it went on right through the whole range, including our agricultural problems. Although we could get a great deal of help from the Imperial Institute and locally, we had to get men from outside the country. In connexion with silviculture the same thing arose, and so it went on over the whole range of this vast undertaking. To-day quite a large proportion of the technical staffs of these great undertakings in Northern Rhodesia are men drawn, not from this country, but from other lands. It is a great thing in scientific work to get a mixing of the knowledge of different countries, but it is extraordinary that out of this country, at a time when there was a great deal of depression and unemployment, and people were supposed to have difficulties in finding work, we could not get the men with the qualifications. Any really healthy scientific development in this country, it seems to me, must be based on a great improvement in our scientific training, beginning in the schools and going on through the technical colleges, it may be, or through the universities.

We have not got the educational equipment in this country on a scale, so far as I know, adequate to produce all the men that may be wanted for such a great development as that which took place in Northern Rhodesia in the fifteen years before the war. I am quite certain that the noble Lord who is to reply on behalf of the Government would say that for the splendid work he has done on the scientific side of the war he too has been woefully short of men of the right type. One of the most important things which I hope the Government have got well in hand is this question of the development of scientific education, and the development of it right through from the schools into the universities or the technical colleges. Lord Cherwell said a thing on Tuesday which is profoundly true—that higher teaching is only good and sound if it is given near the advancing edge of knowledge; that is to say, that the great teachers must be doing research. The question very often comes in some sciences whether we are not trying to teach them at too many points, whether it would not be better to establish perhaps one, perhaps two, perhaps more, great special institutions, not universities, but technical colleges.

During the years I was in America nothing impressed me much more than the efficiency of such places as the Boston "Tech.," giving the most marvellous training and directed towards producing men who were able to fulfil that most important function of technical development—to pick up ideas from the fundamental sciences and apply them and develop them into the processes of industry. Sometimes that requires an enormous body of research, especially in the field of chemical engineering, where there is often the greatest difficulty in turning laboratory work into the productive processes of commercial work. We have had that problem to face time and time again, and it often is only solved by good team work. These developments in education which I have suggested, if carried out, would not necessarily produce great men of science, but they would produce the men who can carry out the work which industry wants done, in the main, in its factories.

There is great confusion in industry in regard to the use of the word "research." There is a real research done by industries, as in Lord McGowan's great companies and in the Metropolitan Vickers companies. There is real research being done there, but a great part of what is done in industry is only development work, technical development. It requires quite a different type of mind and quite a different type of equipment, but it is often called research. Therefore I beg of your Lordships that when you are told that British industry is lagging hopelessly behind in research, and you are given some figures to show what other people are doing in research, try before you condemn British industry to decide whether those persons are using the word ''research'' strictly or whether they may be using the word to cover the ordinary technical development that has to go on every time with all processes. There is a great deal of misleading information, not intentionally misleading information, given in many accounts of what is happening in American industry.

The points I want to make are these. First, that we have in this country—I believe we always have had—the best type of mind that is available in the world, as good as any if not better than any. But a great fundamental research effort does mean that we want to provide the facilities which the great university laboratories alone can provide, and we want to see that their work is helped forward by grants if necessary, but, anyhow, by every facility being given to them. In addition to that, we want a large increase in the number of men who are trained in scientific work and who are available for employment by industry, whether it be industry being carried on in this country or in the interests of this country, in the Dominions and Colonies or, it may be, in foreign lands. Then there was the other point that Lord Brabazon made. We have reached a stage in scientific development when it is almost impossible for any one mind to keep abreast of the whole advancing trend. We want some coordination of knowledge, some machinery for the co-ordination of knowledge, and the Royal Society Committee has proved itself a very poor servant of the State in that line.

I do not know how many of your Lordships are familiar with the strange case of Dr. Edridge-Green, one of the great men of science of this country who, now nearly fifty years ago, laid the foundations of the current views of colour-vision and of modern testings. His views were accepted by those who studied them and the Board of Trade got the Royal Society to appoint a Committee. That Committee opposed the Edridge-Green view. When I was President of the Board of Trade, nearly twenty-five years after that, the Royal Society was still blocking the Edridge-Green views and it has never ceased officially to resist them, although the Royal Society views were blown skyhigh a generation ago. Only the other day I saw Dr. Edridge-Green, whom I had not seen for twenty-five years or certainly for twenty years. He is recognized the world over as our greatest man on the science of vision, and I have special reasons to know who are the good men on vision. As I said, I saw him the other day and said, "What are you doing in connexion with the war work?" "Oh," he said, "nobody has ever asked me to do anything about it." With all our problems of night fighting, of vision at night, to be solved, Dr. Edridge-Green has not been consulted!

He is old in years but within the last few months he has introduced certain new ideas that are a great advance on anything that has been known before. There we have an example of a Royal Society investigation going wrong, and going wrong for the very reason that Lord Brabazon pointed out, that the men in the Royal Society are specialists in a narrow line. The man who was Chairman, the great man who was Chairman of the Committee, was Lord Rayleigh, and twenty-five years after he had condemned the Edridge-Green view he wrote a letter saying he had been wrong. But that has never removed the ban from Edridge-Green. It is the most extraordinary story in our scientific history and it is well known. Everyone who has been at the Board of Trade knows about it. A publication was brought out by the Board of Trade to show how they had been prevented from taking appropriate steps to prevent life being lost at sea and on the railways by a Royal Society Committee composed of great men, of men highly but narrowly specialists in physics, and ignorant of physiology.

It is a most extraordinary story and it is one that is being repeated. Only the other day I was speaking to a man not of the first rank perhaps in the field of science but prominent, and I said: "Why is not Edridge-Green employed at all?" He said: "Oh, he is the man who was blown out of the water a generation ago by the Royal Society." On the contrary, he blew the Royal Society out of the water on colour vision. That is the sort of thing that happens, and it has been shown in this country time and time again, though not in that extreme form. That is the worst case I know, but we have done it so many times in this country. When some fundamental work like that of Sir William Perkin on organic chemistry has been discovered we do nothing with it. We block it.

I need not relate other instances, but there is the point to which Lord Brabazon's remarks were directed as to what can be done by the co-ordination of knowledge. It is a point I ventured to raise to your Lordships some weeks ago in connexion with health. We want some body, some class of persons with scientific knowledge to whom questions can be referred, who are not themselves engaged competitively in research but who have got the synthetizing type of mind that can bring this knowledge home. I spoke of it then as a General Staff of Science. I do not know what shape it can take, but I am quite certain that it cannot be the ordinary bureaucratic type of Government institution. What we want is some body, not some individual but some group of men who would bear the relation to science that would be as comparable as may be to that, shall I say, borne by the Supreme Court of the United States to the practice of law in the United States. We have nothing quite like that here. The organization here is different. That is the sort of thing I have in mind. Unless we can develop some organ for the co-ordination of knowledge I fail to see how we can get full use made, and early use made, of great discoveries, because although, as has been pointed out, great discoveries are made they are resisted for a generation or two very often and are taken up by other people before they come into practical use here. The Perkin work is an instance. Germany ran away with the whole of organic chemistry applied to industry and in 1914 we were left very far behind, as I think the noble Lord, Lord McGowan, will agree. We do not want that to happen again.

Then there is the other point about personnel. When we wanted to develop the Copper Belt in Northern Rhodesia we were short of men in this country and we had to get them from elsewhere. So these are the points on which I hope the noble Lord, Lord Cherwell, when he replies will be able to give us some assurance. One is in regard to the great expansion of the number of scientifically trained people, so that we may have a larger class of men to draw from in industry; another is the question whether there should not be great special technical colleges established to produce the type of man I have been speaking of; and there is further the question whether the Government have any idea of setting up what I have referred to as a General Staff of Science. The term is not a good one, but it is difficult to explain what one means except by using terms which have other associations. All of us who have been associated now for many years with science realize what a great work the noble Lord has done in the Government during this war period to bring science to the practical assistance of the State.

LORD STANMORE

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Viscount Dawson of Penn, I beg to move that this debate be: now adjourned until the next sitting day.

Moved, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Lord Stanmore.)

On Question, Motion agreed to, and debate adjourned accordingly.