A paper by Dr. W. Sieber, read at the Twelfth Congress of the International Society of Chemists and Colourists in Carlsbad, on stabilizing diazo printing colours used with beta-naphthol prepares on cotton. He reports that boric acid and tungstic acid can replace acetic acid, gives recipes for preparing the stable diazo colours from p-nitraniline, m-nitraniline or p-nitro-o-anisidine, and compares dissociation constants of the acids. The second half proposes a new explanation of the constitution of diazo compounds, arguing that nitrous acid first forms an addition (molecular) compound with the amine rather than a condensation product.