The War and New British Industries

Abstract

IF the war has no other results, it is at least compelling us to examine our affairs in such detail as we have never before attempted, and the examination has brought to light all sorts of curious facts about industries that we Ought to have started and did not, and products that we ought to have made for ourselves but purchased instead. Who, for example, would have supposed that the palm-kernel oil used in this country, and grown in British West Africa, had to be pressed out in Germany? It is not to be imagined that the British mills were unequal to the task; but somehow they did not do it, and consequently the outbreak of war threatened West Africa rather seriously. Fortunately, Sir Owen Philipps, the chairman of the West African Section of the London Chamber of Commerce, took the matter up, and equally fortunately the Imperial Institute energetically turned its attention to the whole problem of oil seeds affected by the war. The Institute has already published some important reports on the subject, which are now embodied in the book under review.

The War and New British Industries.

Imperial Institute Monographs. Oil Seeds and Feeding Cakes, with a Preface by Dr. W. R. Dunstan. Pp. xxiii + 112. (London: John Murray, 1915.) Price 2s. 6d. net.