THE CHEMICAL NEWS.

VOL. CXXIII., No. 3198.

THE ASSOCIATION OF BRITISH CHEMICAL MANUFACTURERS.

THE Fifth Annual General Meeting of the Association of British Chemical Manufacturers was held at the Chemical Society's Rooms, Burlington House, Piccadilly, W.1, on Thursday, July 14, 1921, for the purpose of receiving the Reports of the Council and of the Scrutineers, and for the election of the Auditors. Sir JOHN BRUNNER, Bart., Chairman of the Association, presided.

After the notice convening the meeting had been read, the Chairman in moving the adoption of the Report, said: We have now been working as an Association for five years, and I think that to-day is a critical point in the history of the Association. We have got over the first fine flush of our enthusiasm, and we are not yet respectable by reason of old age, not settled in our policy; so that it is a critical period. Our influence, gentlemen, is great, and it is growing. Hitherto there has been no association of chemical manufacturers to which the Government, or any other body, could appeal. Now they appeal to the Association of British Chemical Manufacturers as a matter of course. There were, of course, a large number of scientific societies connected with chemistry and chemical enterprise, but this association, I believe, in the hackneyed phrase, fills a long-felt want, and I believe for that reason that we will go on and prosper. The year has been a very active one in Parliamentary work. There have been three Bills the Dyestuffs Bill, the Safeguarding of Industries Bill, and the Railways Bill, which have all occupied the attention of your Executive. The Dyestuffs Bill has now become an Act; the other two are not yet through. The Act, of course, concerns dyestuff makers and users, and to my mind if you are going to have protective legislation, that Dyestuffs Act is the fairest way in which you can arrange such matters, because the Committee which settles questions arising under the Act is composed of both manufacturers and users. Although things have not been perfectly smooth upon that Committee, I think the difficulties are gradually being solved, the friction is being avoided, and the scheme is going to work.

With regard to the Safeguarding of Industries Bill, that is now before the House, and, as you know very well, has been closured very severely The third great piece of Parliamentary work that has been done by your Association is in connection with the Railways Bill. There has been, as you know, an Advisory Committee on this question which has met a very large number of times and reported to the Executive every month. The Railways Bill is now going through the House of Commons split up between two Committees. This Railways Bill is an extremely important thing for the whole trade of the country, and as less to chemical manufacturers. We hope to get something out of the Bill as it stands, but when the whole of the Bill is through the House, and has become an Act, then will begin the real work in dealing with the details of the rates. If

anybody at a Board Meeting asks the representative of his particular company on the Association what the Association is doing for the benefit of that company, there is one thing which I wish you would say straight out in answer we are looking after the Railways Bill; that is to say; we are looking after railway rates on your behalf. If we were doing nothing else, gentlemen, that would justify the existence of the Association.

Then with regard to the other activities of the Association, we have been very busy in administrative matters, quite apart from legislative matters. The Smoke and Noxious Vapours Abatement Departmental Committee was attended on our behalf by Mr. Max Muspratt, and he gave advice, which I think is very good, to that Committee, namely, that they should work on the lines of the Alkali Act. That Act was originally I believe, very much objected to by the alkaline manufacturers, but in the long run they have found that the alkali inspectors have rather been of assistance to them in their work than otherwise. If the Committee continue their work and a Bill is in the future founded upon the same lines I think the chemical manufacturers of the country will have nothing to fear. It is the duty of all of us-and I am quite sure everybody agrees with me to try and stop the smoke and noxious vapours nuisance. The experience of those who have lived in London during the last three months, when it has really been quite a pleasant place to live in on account of the absence of smoke, will go to show that it is the duty of the chemical manufacturers of the country to do all they possibly can to purify the atmosphere of our big towns. (Hear Hear.) Then with regard to the Home Office Regulations under the Factory and Workshops Act. The Association ought to raise the strongest protest of which it is capable against the procedure of the Home Office in this matter. As you very well know, legislation is passed now-a-days simply because the mass of it is so large that Parliament cannot attend to all the details, giving powers to Departments to make regulations which have the force of law. The Home Office actually has the power, without appeal, to prohibit any chemical process. They could to-day send an inspector to your works and say that you must not continue a certain process. I do not suppose they would venture to do such a thing as that, but they actually have the power. They have, as you know, issued certain regulations for what they term the dangerous and unhealthy parts of our business. We have been able to somewhat mitigate the effect of those draft regulations; the matter is still under negotiation, and although we shall not get any satisfaction, yet we shall not be subjected to the dangerous, so far as our businesses are concerned, parts of those regulations.

We have in the past and previous years encouraged research in many ways, and have given a substantial contribution to the Chemical Society's library.

The Joint Research Committee of the Association and of the British Chemical Plant Manufacturers' Association has been continuing its work, and I believe that it will succeed in standardising many types of plant and thus make it very much cheaper for manufacturers. It has often been a

reproach to British industry that there is so little standardisation I believe that this Research Committee will, in the course of time, very much cheapen our plant. Then further, we have to foster the production of research chemicals. We have obtained information as to what research chemicals are made in this country, and suggested to people that those which are lacking should be made by somebody. We have in these ways and in many other ways suggested to members that they should co-operate. It is, of course, a very difficult thing to get people to co-operate who are competitors in business. They have been very individualistic in the past, but there are so many ways in which they can co-operate to their mutual benefit, that this Association, I think you will agree, is doing right in endeavouring to get them to co-operate in those ways which are to their mutual advantage. (Hear Hear.) This COoperation has, as I say, taken the form of the stimulation of production of dyes and other fine chemicals, by the provision of the proper intermediates and raw materials by members of the Association. We have further co-operated by endeavouring to put the members into touch with anybody who is anxious to get certain materials and have endeavoured to find out where such materials can be acquired, and having done so we have brought together the supplier and the man requiring the particular article.

On the whole, I think you can congratulate yourselves upon having had a very successful year as an Association. We are all now going through very bad times, and my only wish for all the members of the Association is that we are now at the bottom, and that trade and industry will begin from now to rise to a pinnacle of prosperity. (Cheers.)

Dr. E F. ARMSTRONG, F.R.S., in seconding the motion for the adoption of the Report, said that to the majority of members of the Association the fact that the Dyestuffs Bill passed through the House, and that the Safeguarding of Industries Bill was very nearly in the same position, would be regarded as the most important events of the year. From the point of view of the chemical trade he thought they ought not to overlook two points, that whilst they had asked the Government to help to safeguard their industries during the critical period which lies ahead, they must not in any way relax their own efforts to make themselves independent of the Government. (Hear hear.) That is the first point. The second point was that this assistance from the Government would be all too dearly bought if it involved too much Government interference. (Hear hear.) His third point was the delay-so dear to the heart of the bureacrats, but the greatest enemy of trade -an if as a result of any of this new legislation they were not able to get the goods they wanted, and had to suffer those irritating delays, then it would be a great handicap. With regard to the publication of the list of research chemicals, he thought in time it would become a very valuable document, and one of which they would all be proud, and which would certainly lead to efforts being made to increase the number of those compounds valuable for research, and so emancipate them from any Continental influence. More particularly, he would like to refer to the very valuable work done in connection with chemical plant.

In the old days a chemical manufacturer in this country wishing for plant had either to go to a local foundry with his own design and get it made, and then find out that it would not work, and thus be unable to profit by previous experience of others, or he had to go abroad, put himself in the hands of the Germans, and take what they chose to sell him-generally, he admitted, with satisfactory results-or he had to go to some of the few chemical plant manufacturers here and pay rather dearly for his plant, and again find that he only got to a limited extent the advantage of the experience of others. They wanted to change all that, and he thought they were beginning to change it. He was certain that the Joint Research Committee was a valuable first step in that direction.

The Treasurer, Sir WILLAAM PEARCE, M P., commented on the statement of accounts, and congratulated the Association on its financial position. He also referred to the present position of the Railways Bill, and stated that he would like the meeting to say if it was of fundamental importto the industry that the Bill should go through or could they look with a certain amount of equanimity if it was held up for the time being? The House of Commons might have to make up its mind very seriously whether it would struggle to get the Bill through or whether it could be be allowed to drop and be brought up at

ance

a

more convenient time. It did appear to him that if the Railways Bill were held up, at any rate, the agreement with the railway companies would have to go through, and they would then have to lose one of their great holds on the railway companies, because the payment by the State of 60 million pounds, less certain allowances, was conditional on their granting certain securities as to profits. He did not see how the financial agreement could be held up, because the position of the railway companies would be such that unless a settlement was arrived at, their debenture interest and preference dividends and many other things would be in jeopardy, because this money was owed them by the Government.

The General Manager, Mr. W. J. U. WoOOLCOCK, C B. E., M.P., said there had been a rather serious disagreement on the question of exceptional rates. The railway companies held very strong opinions on the clauses in the Bill, and after listening to their case, he came to the conclusion that they had an almost unanswerable case; not purely from the argumentative point of view, but what was even stronger than mere argument, namely, the physical impossibility of carrying out the suggestions of the Government. The clauses as they stood would be unworkable. He thought it was physically impossible in the time allowed, to adjust the enormous number of exceptional rates, and therefore, the Government were bound to meet them on the point.

Mr. KENNETH CHANCE, M.A., dealt with the standardisation of chemical plant. With regard to the Railways Bill, he thought that if its passing meant a strengthening of Government control, and probably the continuation of one of the Ministries, by all means let the Bill go. They could settle things very quickly amongst themselves; the railway directors and their managers had ample opportunities of seeing the advantage of co-operation one with the other during the war,

and they knew infinitely better than the Minister of Transport how far that co-operation could usefully be carried out.

Dr. P. C. C. ISHERWOOD said that up to the time of the Dyestuffs Bill being introduced into the House of Commons they all thought that fine chemicals would be incorporated in that Bill, and he thought they would have been very much better pleased to have had fine chemicals included in that Bill than in the present Bill. The last thing that fine chemical manufacturers wanted was to adopt a check on manufacturing output. They wanted to give the freest opportunity for users in this country, particularly those who are connected with the export trade, to freely export anything which they could not, or had no prospect of manufacturing.

Mr. E. V. EVANS, O.B.E., F.I C., thought that the one great accomplishment of the year was the passage of the Dyestuffs Bill, and he congratulated the Association upon the part which it had played in its passage through the House. The Licensing Committee, formed to work the Act, was a body of men really keen to carry out the principles laid down, the main principle being that the dye industry of this country should be fostered without prejudicing the users' interests. He would like to pay a tribute to the attitude adopted by the users' representatives on that Committee. There were many difficulties, but it would be readily imagined that the task of examining our British colours and of determining whether they are a suitable substitute to replace imported articles and then scheduling and pooling the information so that it can be used at a later stage, represented a fairly large scheme. He could assure them that the Committee was in no way satisfied that it had attained the ideal it set itself in this respect. There was already a vast amount of information collected, and it behoved them at this stage to take adequate advantage of the information that has accrued.

Mr. THOMAS MORSON thought that in view of the amount of spade work that has been done by members, the dropping of the Railways Bill would be a disaster.

The Rt. Hon. J. W. WILSON, M.P., said that the Railways Bill consisted of three parts: one to meet the question between the Government and the railways, and to avoid, by a definite Parliamentary settlement, possibly years of negotiation and law suits and legal questions which did nobody any good except the lawyers, that was the sum to be paid in satisfaction of the past war claims; secondly, to carry on some sort of agreed machinery for settling wages and salaries on the railways, which also vitally indirectly affected the public, because only by proper handling of that question could disastrous strikes be avoided on the one hand or rates cut down and the expenses of railways kept within limit. Those two he imagined the Government were sure to want to put through. The tendency had been, especially when a question arose as to dividing the Bill, that many Members of Parliament suggested that the rates question be left until another year, and of course, there was no doubt that the railways and the men would both acquiesce in that so long as they had their part of the settlement. He felt that as a body of traders they ought to make their views perfectly clear as to whether or not they would

venture to defer the whole rates fixing machinery of the Bill till next year. Personally, he felt that in all big settlements of great national questions when there are three distinct interests involved, traders, railway shareholders, and men, that it was from a statesman's point of view and a general welfare point of view very much easier to get a fair settlement if they were all done at once than when one of the interests was left out. (Hear hear).

Mr. MAX MUSPRATT, J.P., felt that it was better to have a bad Railways Bill than none at the present time. It was always possible to have things improved afterwards. After all, the work that has been done it would be highly undesirable to say that in the main it should be held over. With regard to the Safeguarding of Industries Bill and the Dyestuffs Act, he agreed that ultimately the only protection was sound manufacture, and there they could do a very great deal by following up their ideas of co-operation. Dyestuffs Act would be more or less futile if they did not believe that it was going to lead to a great deal more co-operation and delimitation. In the much more intricate problems of fine chemicals they would have to survey the ground of the whole fine chemical industry and find out what was best to be done.

The

Mr. THOMAS HORROCKS also spoke on the Railways Bill, and

Mr. RICHARD SELIGMAN on the Joint Research Committee work.

The CHAIRMAN replied to the points raised in the Discussion. The Report was then unanimously adopted.

The following Resolution was carried :"That this meeting is of the opinion that it would be unfortunate if any of the parts of the Railways Bill were dropped, and unges the Government to take every possible step to secure the passing of the Bill.” On the motion of Sir WILLIAM PEARCE, seconded by Mr. MUSPRATT, the Auditors, Messrs. Feasey & Co., were unanimously re-elected.

The report of the Scrutineers was received and adopted.

Mr. R. G. PERRY, C.B.E., proposed a hearty vote of thanks to the Chairman, which was carried with applause, and the Chairman returned thanks. The proceedings then terminated.

The Rt Hon. J. W. Wilson, M.P., has been appointed Hon. President in succession to Lord Moulton. Mr. R. G. Perry remains the Hon. Vice-President. Sir John Brunner continues in office for a second year as Chairman, and Mr. Max Muspratt succeeds Dr. E. F. Armstrong as Vice-Chairman. Sir William Pearce, M P., continues as Hon. Treasurer.

Vbp 157.6 2 isopropyl cyclopropane

CH+ Ma 37 57

Vb'p 170°2

Zelinsky and Utskensky have thus discovered an the unique compound which diverges from bridged ring type, which is monocyclic, and possesses two free valencies.

Free Valencies in Sulphur.

The amount of activation of the supplementary valencies so far, has been shown to be 2×0 26 as for the diselenides. The Xanthates and allied compounds show many such cases. The local anomaly is, however, dependent on the general unsaturation.

It should be noted in the first place that the A. R. of doubly-bound sulphur is ra 9'07 A= 9'07-796=1'11 (2×0'56).

C- -S or C=S<

probably the latter, since CN shows no anomaly. Nitrogen, more difficult to activate in this way than a heavier atom, is like sulphur. Various values of sulphur are found in the Xanthates, which involve activated or free valencies.

>S1 7'96 > S2 8.20

The first is a partial activation; the second is complete. Many cases exist which illustrate the rule of mutual interaction or influence resulting