BREAKING DOWN" THE GUN FOOD

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 88, 8 January 1919, Page 6

BREAKING DOWN" THE GUN FOOD

WHAT OF THE GREAT SHELL DUMPS? "What beats me," said a soldier to me the other day, "is what we shall do with the ammunition now we've got no one. to fire it nt." ■ He went on to. describe the shell dumps, hundreds of yards' long, and evidontly regarded peaco' with some disfavour. The shells and bombs must obviously be disposed of; for one thing, there is no place to. store millions of objects that attain sft. in length and three-quarters of a ton in weight; they cannot lie in the open while the metals rust,or corrode, and as time goes on, the explosives- develop uncertain tempers." » After a few years the shells would be "duds." The only thing to do is to break them down. There are for this, course j good reasons other than the storage problem: With copper over .£IOO n ton and serge p.t 13s a yaird, we have here a reserve of materials, worth many millions, and, moreover, we need the actual materinls. for the world is starved of raw material for peaceful industry. Here are thousands of tons of. steel, copper, aluminium, brass, tinplate, em'dboard, naprr, textiles, etc., all of which can j b» used. Even some of the explosives can be applied to peace.' Tl'ey arc too swift for mine and tunnel blasting, but nil Tiave a composition more or less similar to tbe viilnnhlp nitrates which we nso a= fertilisers. , They are perfectly safe if used in the open, and it is comic to think that next year a French peasant may be manuring a trpnch-eloven 'field with the contents of a German shell. A great deal of stock is made up of moral ™rls which enn be melted down. We hold a great many pmpty shells, fuses, cartridge cases, finished or pin-tly worked; nil this can go to the crucible, and it will.please the taxpayer to know that in :"any casos we oi>ti recover in eood metal as much.as a fifth to a quarter of the. npst. As for filM shells and the oneration will be rather more complicated: it is not dangerous if the rul"s are followed, and indeed it is rare that breaking down causes a casualty, but it involves a great d"al of work. Shells aTe easily emptied, for most explosives nre meltib'e or s"lu'"W<\ and oan lie poured out of tbe sliell that contains them: the e v nlosive does not protest, nnd though -cordite refers to bo cut with! bronze scissors (bprn»«e; this prevents sparks), these operations are simple enondi. Some verv. sensitivo unrK'such , i as detonators, must be dumped in the son, but. euch pnrts as fuses ran easily be tnVon to pieces nnd sent tn the inciting pot. while t'm valuable cambric and serge of the cartrid»p ljags can be ripped away from tV cordite. All this will provide many months nf work for thousands of "len and v-nmen; as on average round will produce Mb. to LOfllb. of stH and slb. of brass, this will be one of tho first- orcns'nns where war is made to pay.—"Daily Mail."