ical control of duties,
bounties, and freights; its members were representative of the different
commercial interests of the empire; and they acted, as a rule, without
control from the Reichstag. You can read what I said for yourselves, if
you think it worth while, in The Journal of the Society of Chemical
Industry for 1903.

Let me give you a simple case of the operations of that trade council.
_Ex uno disce omnes._ A certain firm had a fairly profitable monopoly in
a chemical product which it had maintained for many years. It was not a
patented article, but one for which the firm had discovered a good
process of manufacture. About six years ago this firm found that its
Liverpool custom was being transferred to German makers. On inquiry, it
transpired that the freight on this particular article from Hamburg to
Liverpool had been lowered. The firm considered its position, and by
introducing economies it found that it could still compete at a profit.
A year later German manufacturers lowered the price substantially, so
that the English firm could not sell without making a dead loss. It
transpired that the lowering of price was due to a heavy export bounty
being paid to the German manufacturers by the German State.

It is the bringing of the heavy machinery of State to bear on the
minutiae of commerce which makes it impossible to compete with such
methods. One article after another is attacked, as opportunity offers;
British manufacture is killed; and Germany acquires a monopoly. No trade
is safe; its turn may not have come.

Much has been said about British manufacture of dyestuffs, and much
nonsense has been written about the lack of young British chemists to
help in their manufacture. There is no lack of able inventive young
British chemists. Owing to the unfairness of German competition by
methods just exemplified, a manufacturer, as a rule, does not care to
risk capital in the payment of a number of chemists for making "fine
chemicals." He finds "heavy chemicals" simpler. I do not wonder at his
decision, though I lament it. There are also other reasons. The duty on
methyl alcohol (for which no rebate is given) makes it impossible to
introduce economically methyl groups into dyes; the restrictions
incident on the use of duty-free alcohol do not commend themselves to
manufacturers; these constitute other obstacles in the way of the
British color maker. Lastly, our patent regulations are even yet not
what they might