News and Views

Abstract

SIR ALFRED MOND'S address on the chemical industry, read by Dr. F.A. Freeth before the Central Economic League on oct 20, ought to receive wide publicity, for it tells the plain man in plain terms how that industry, particularly in Great Britain, stands in relation to his own daily needs, his protection, his future requirements, and, in fact, his very life. Such a pronouncement, coming as it does from the chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd., the great merger of Brunner, Mond and Co., Ltd., Nobel Industries, Ltd., British Dyes, and the United Alkali Co., Ltd., with a total of seventy-five constituent and associated companies, cannot fail to merit the closest attention of economists and of all those interested in the different aspects of the social welfare and development of the race. An analysis of the ordinary doings of the ordinary man throughout the twenty-four hours has shown that all the objects with which he deals, and most of the food he eats, have at some time or other come within the province of chemical industry. Chemicals, in fact, form the foundation of the world's industries, and hence are to be found at the very root of Imperial security and prosperity. It is of course not only the chemist who carries the technical responsibility in these concerns; as Sir Alfred Mond remarked, good engineering can also turn an unprofitable chemical process into a profitable one, notwithstanding that the same chemical reaction has been used under comparable conditions in each case. The new fertiliser process at Billingham, for example, depends for its success on the application of extremely high gas pressures. The development of an industrial technique of high pressures not only leads to commercial success in one branch of the industry, but also opens up new avenues of research an pplication of immeasurable national and Imperi significance.