September 8, 1916.

THE COLLIERY GUARDIAN.

453

British Association for the Advancement of Science.

ENGINEERING SECTION.

The following address was delivered by Mr. Gerald
Stoney, B.A.I. (Dub.), F.R.S., M.Inst.C.E., president
of the section, at Newcastle on Wednesday.

At times such as these the mind naturally turns to
problems to be considered both at the present time and
after the war, and, in considering such problems, a
review of some of the errors committed in the past is
most necessary.

Such a review enables methods which should be
adopted both now and in the future to be considered.

As this is an address to the Engineering Section of
the British Association for the Advancement of Science,
only such problems will be considered as affect engi-
neering and its allied industries.

One thing which has handicapped our industries is
the reluctance of firms to utilise highly educated labour
or to adopt scientific methods. In looking round the
industries of the district, one is struck by the small
number of men who have undergone a thorough scien-
tific training at one of the universities or at one of the
leading technical colleges, and who occupy a prominent
place in the firms in this district.

The general complaint is that university and college
men are too theoretical and not practical.

It is the. usual thing for a bad workman to blame his
tools, and is it not because employers do not know how
to make use of such labour that they utilise it to such
a small and imperfect extent?

Things are very different in some other countries with
which we have competed in the past, and with which
there will be, in all probability, still fiercer competition
in the future. There we find the fullest use made of
highly educated scientific labour.

How many engineering firms in this district have a
skilled fehemist on their staff, and what percentage of
these pay him a decent salary? And how many heads
of firms have sufficient chemical knowledge to appre-
ciate the work of and utilise the services of such a man,
because unless there is appreciation of the work done
by such a man, his services are useless, and he becomes
discouraged, generally finding himself up against the
blank stone wall of there being no appreciation of his
services; and yet chemical problems are continually
cropping up in engineering work. There is the ques-
tion of the supply of materials; as a rule the manufac-
turer trusts to the name of the contractor, and assumes
that he gets materials of the composition and purity he
ordered. Every now and then something goes wrong,
and the question arises, why? Without a chemist to
analyse the material, it is often most difficult to say.
Apart from this question of the analysis of raw or partly-
manufactured materials received, there is the chronic
question as to the mixtures of the metals in both the
metal and brass foundry, and large economies can be
effected by systematic analyses.

Another direction in which scientific labour is invalu-
able is in seeing that instruments are in proper order,
and that tests are accurately carried out. Tests carried
out with inaccurate instruments, and without proper
scientific precautions to see that they are accurate and
reliable, are worse than useless, and, in fact, most mis-
leading and dangerous, as entirely unreliable inferences
may be. drawn from them, and far-reaching troubles
caused in the future. How many tests of steam
engines are unreliable because there is no standardisa-
tion of the pressure and vacuum gauges and thermo-
meters used, and in how many cases is even the reading
of the barometer omitted? An absolute pressure
stated as so many inches of vacuum has no meaning,
unless the barometer reading is also given or the inches
of vacuum is stated as reduced to “ Bar. 30.” How
many firms using steam have any arrangements for test-
ing vacuum and pressure gauges, and yet there are no
instruments more liable to error than these gauges?
When one tries to analyse the results of steam tests,
one is constantly up against the elementary question :
“ Were the gauges, etc., accurate? What a misfortune
it is that there were no means of testing their accuracy.”
Under scientific supervision, arrangements are made to
avoid such troubles, and get reliable results which can
be depended on for future designs.

What has been said about pressure gauges and the
measurement of pressure applies, of course, to all other
instruments and measurements. In most works, it
may be said with sorrow, that the only moderately
accurate measurements that can be made are those of
dimensions and weight. It is only by accurate testing
of existing plant that reliable deductions can be drawn,
enabling safe progress to be made in future designs.

One of the great things which helped forward the
steam turbine in the early days was accurate and full
testing of each plant as soon as it was completed and
before it left the works. The late, Mr. Willans was
probably the first, or one of the first, to recognise the
importance of accurate testing of steam plant, and the
success his well-known engine had was largely due to
this. From the earliest days of the steam turbine, Sir
Charles Parsons recognised the necessity of such testing,
and the test house has always been a prominent feature
of Heaton Works. And then in the higher ranks of an
engineering works it requires a scientific mind to draw
safe conclusions from tests carried out, and to see in
what directions progress can be safely made. Such
methods have enabled the steam turbine, during the
writer’s acquaintance with it, now extending over some
28 years, to grow from 50 horse-power to some 45,000
horse-power or more in each unit, and the steam con-
sumption to be reduced from 40 lb. per horse-power hour
to about 7| lb., or less than one-fifth.

And closely allied to such work in engineering works is
the general question of scientific research, and here a

trained scientific mind is of the utmost importance to
see that reliable results are obtained, and to make true
logical deductions from those results. Without suitable
training, a man is liable to be unable to grasp all the
conditions of an experiment, and to make deductions
from the data obtained which are totally unjustified, and
often lead to most disastrous results in the future.

Such research is generally carried out in four places
—engineering works, private laboratories, engineering
colleges, and^national laboratories.

The first has already been dealt with. The second is
of comparatively small importance in practice.

As regards the third, a great deal of good work has
been done in engineering colleges, often under great
difficulties for want of plant and money, and it is greatly
to the credit of our professors and others that they have
succeeded in doing so much with the very inadequate
appliances at their disposal, and handicapped for want
of funds. How inadequate their income is can be
understood when it is remembered that Leipzig Univer-
sity alone has an annual income from the German
Government of £100,000, as against a total Govern-
ment grant to all the universities here of about £45,000,
or less than half.

Of national laboratories we have only one, the
National Physical Laboratory at Teddington, and here
again the support given to it is totally inadequate. The
income from all sources last year was only £40,000, and
of this £23,000 was charges for work done, such as test-
ing meters and other instruments and such commercial
work; the Government grant is only £7,000 a year, and
besides this, £7,500 was received for experiments in
connection with aeronautics, which is really war work.
The balance was made up of subscriptions, grants from
technical societies, and miscellaneous, receipts. Com-
pare this with the German equivalent, the Reichsanstalt
of Berlin, which has an income of £70,000 a year from
the Government, or 10 times that given to our National
Physical Laboratory. The Bureau of Standards, the
similar institution in the United States of America, has
a Government grant of £140,000, or 20 times ours. In
the Civil Service Estimates there is an allowance of
£40,000 for research, an increase of £15,000 over that
allotted last year. The total estimates are over
£20,000,000, so that less than one-fifth per cent, is
allotted to research.

It is difficult to realise what benefits might be gained
by investigations which could be carried on by the
National Physical Laboratory if only sufficient funds
were available, and of what importance they might be
to industry at large. One example may suffice. Some
time ago the Reichsanstalt carried out a most complete
set of tests on a certain class of machine, an investiga-
tion which must have cost several thousands of pounds
sterling, apart from the time it occupied. The results
of this investigation are available to German manufac-
turers of this machine, and just before the war prepara-
tions were being made to take advantage of this, and
from figures stated a large extra economy was expected.
This, of course, would enable them, provided the cost
of manufacture was not too high, to have an enormous
advantage over such machines manufactured without
this special knowledge. The Institution of Mechanical
Engineers saw the importance of this problem, and
appointed a research committee to deal with the ques-
tion, but the first question met with is that of finance.
Should this be the case in a wealthy country such as
this, that depends on its manufactures for its very
existence? And that such an investigation is required
is obvious from the fact that the designs of no two inde-
pendent manufacturers of this machine in this country
agree among themselves. Of course, each claims his is
the best, but this cannot be so.

Investigations in engineering shops do not meet such
a case. The question of finance has to be carefully
watched, and as soon as results sufficiently good are
obtained they are generally accepted, and in any case
the problem is rarely thrashed out to the bottom, an
almost universal defect in commercial research work.
Without the help of the National Physical Laboratory
the position of the aeroplane in this country would be
very different from what it is, and what has been done
for the aeroplane requires to be done in many other
directions.

But what firm here would do what has been done in
the commercial synthesis of indigo, on which it is said
that 17 years’ work and over £1,000,000 has been spent
by one firm alone abroad. Here, in chemical investigations
and manufactures the Government refuse to even give
the help of allowing cheap alcohol to be obtainable, and
much of such work is impossible in this country on this
account, as in many cases methylated and denatured
alcohol are' not suitable. Recently, under pressure, the
restrictions have been somewhat relaxed by the Govern-
ment, but many manufacturers have found that the
privileges granted are so tied up in red tape that the
concessions are practically useless.

And it is not only on the scientific side that there is
so much to be done in the way of putting our house in
order; there is much to be done in the way of putting
the management and commercial sides of engineering
and other allied works in a position to compete.

The great growth of engineering works and their being
formed into limited liability companies has not been
without its drawbacks.

Tn the old days an engineering works was compara-
tively small, and, as a rule, one man, generally a clever
engineer, was at the head. After his death, and often
before, the place was turned into a limited liability com-
pany, and gradually fell into the hands of a body of
men, many of them not technical, who had no further

interest in the firm than to draw their salaries as
directors and managers, and who had no financial stake
in the concern beyond the £500 or £1,000 in shares
necessary to qualify them as directors. The result is
that the place gradually degenerates, initiative ceases,
and it finally gets to a stage of not paying any dividends,
and really being kept going, not for the sake of the share-
holders, but of the directors and other officials.

Such a firm as a rule does not put enough aside for
depreciation, and thus its machinery and buildings
degenerate and become obsolete, which makes it still
less able to compete with more modern firms. At the
same time, it is not able to afford the money necessary
to carry on the experimental and research work which
is a necessity for any progressive firm, and this its
manufacturers cease to progress with the times. As Sir
Charles Parsons truly said, a man or firm in the face of
financial difficulties cannot carry on research work, and,
further, that the minimum spent on research work
should be at least 1 per cent, of the turnover, and that
the amount it is advisable to spend is 3 per cent.
Unless a firm makes good profits it cannot keep up to
date, and will sooner or later go to the wall.

But the workman says that he should have his share.
What is his share under the present state of things?
The average capital expended in an engineering works
per individual employed is about £200. An investiga-
tion the writer made some years ago gave this figure,
and it was confirmed by an investigation of shipbuilding
yards, which gave £185, and of the Census of Produc-
tion, which gives a capital of £1,500,000,000 for
7,000,000 workers, or £214 per man. An investigation
of the dividends paid shows them to be about 4 per
cent, on the capital employed. Here it must be remem-
bered that firms paying 10 to 15 per cent, on their ordi-
nary capital have often a large preference and debenture
capital, on which a much lower rate of interest is paid,
and also that often part of the ordinary capital was
issued at a premium. Also account has to be taken of
the large number of companies that do not pay any
dividend on their ordinary stock, and often none on
their preference. Little is, as a rule, heard of the
finances of such companies: it is the ones paying good
dividends that public attention is drawn to.

It thus means that the shareholders get about £8 per
share per individual employed.

On the other hand, the average wages for men and
bo vs, skilled and unskilled, is about £70 per annum in
normal times. This means that the worker gets between
eight and nine times as much as the capitalist, and
shows on what a very small margin the capitalist works.
And without the capitalist, under our present system of
individualism, there would be no factories erected and
run, and therefore no work for the working man, a.thing
it is well for him to remember, and also that without
profits the capitalist will not invest in engineering and
other works in this country, but will seek for a more
profitable field for his capital elsewhere. Every £200
invested in this country in a factory means work and
livelihood for one British working man.

At the same time, I am sorry to say the employer
does not look after the welfare of his workmen as he
might. In a small factory the head of the firm, as a
rule, knows all the leading men among the workmen,
many of them having been with him for years. As the
place grows he loses touch with his men, and as an
actual fact knows fewer of those under him when he has
1,000 or more employees than he did when he had 400
or under. This state of things gets worse when the
place is turned into a limited liability company, as
nearly all large places are at present. The result is that
a most deplorable state of things has come to pass. The
workman says, “ Put not thy trust in employers ”; the
master says, ‘‘Put not thy trust in workmen”; and
the official who is between the master and the workman
says, “ Put not thy trust in either.”

It is difficult to say what is to be done to remedy this
state of things, but one cannot help feeling much might
have been done in the past to have prevented such a
regrettable state of affairs as there is at present. Much
of this trouble might have been avoided if employers
had shown more consideration for the welfare of their
workmen. Of course, there are some notable excep-
tions, but they are few and far between. An example
is the necessity of the Factory Acts to ensure proper
light and air and other arrangements necessary for the
health of the workmen. But much more should be
done. Why is it that canteens are being rushed up all
over the country, and why were there so few before?
Tn many works to this day the provisions for getting
food and drink warmed are most primitive and ineffi-
cient, and as to getting anything to eat if one has to
work overtime unexpectedly, it is in most works impos-
sible. As a rule, the only thing available was a drink
at the public house outside the gates, and even this is
now closed at five o’clock. Why, if a man works over-
time, should he also starve? And how can efficient
work be expected under such conditions? Why also
should there not be provision for drying clothes after
walking to work on a wet morning, and each man be
provided with a cupboard where he could keep a change
of boots? Why are not sanitary arrangements decently
private, and why are they not kept clean and whole-
some : they are often in a disgraceful state! These are
only a few samples of the directions in which much
might be done.

The adjustment of the wages to be paid to the work-
man is a most difficult one. There are three principal
ways of paying workmen : on time, on piece, and on
bonus.

On time is the only way of paying a man who is on
various classes of work, where the fair time required for
each job is not known, and in many cases the most highly
skilled men are on such work, and as a result only make
time wages. This results often in the highly skilled man
making less money than the less skilled man who is on