Abstract
THE Prime Minister is one of the all too rare administrators who fully appreciate the importance of the part played by science in modern life, and his sympathies in this connexion found expression in the address with which he opened the Optical Convention at South Kensington on April 12. In pointing out the vital role of optical science in the everyday life of peace no less than of war, he gave as a homely but arresting illustration the fact that even a glass of beer depends for its satisfactory manufacture on the use of at least three optical instruments—the microscope, the polarimeter, and the refractometer. He added that in the last century British optical work was predominant in the world's industry, but during its closing years the industry was nearly overwhelmed by foreign competition, especially on the part of Germany. In that country optical manufacturers at that time enjoyed three great advantages: (1) a stronger tendency amongst German than among British industrialists to invoke the aid of scientific research; (2) the demand for optical goods created by the existence of a large standing army; and (3) a protective tariff. At the end of the War, which demonstrated the danger of allowing this key industry to atrophy, the Government of the day decided that its fate must no longer be left to chance, and introduced the two remedies of ‘safe-guarding’ and a money grant allotted through the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. Since the War, several new difficulties have had to be faced by the optical industry-a general depression of trade, large surplus stocks of optical material, and the abnormal rates of exchange which made foreign competition acute. In the Prime Minister's view, the Exhibition indicated that in spite of these difficulties the quality of British optical manufactures has again been raised to the highest level of achievement.
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News and Views. Nature 117, 562–566 (1926). https://doi.org/10.1038/117562a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/117562a0