SCIENCE AND CAMPAIGN

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 24, 29 January 1940, Page 8

SCIENCE AND CAMPAIGN

WHAT ALLIES ARE DOING

WORK ON NEW WEAPONS

The British advisory council on scientific research and technical development, created .to aid in war work, has held its first meeting, and simultaneously more discussion of secret weapons of the Nazis has begun. The war has brought great changes in the direction of British industry and in those changes scientific workers are playing their part. According to "The Times," the scientists, who used to have a toast, "The electron—may it never be any use to anybody," have been disappointed, and today in British works there are many electronic devices, while "even the old cathode ray tube, for years little more than a laboratory toy, is today rendering gigantic services,"

. Beyond vague statements and the assurance that work on new instruments of war has been well advanced, Britain has revealed nothing of her plans. The Germans themselves have shown something of their hand on the Western Front, employing a weapon which everyone expected—the smoke screen—but the French are now reported to have a counter for it. At the end of last month M. Daladier made some other disclosures in the Chamber of Deputies. He laid most emphasis on the new and superior types of aeroplanes which the French are turning out from their factories. Priority of credits has been granted to aviation, and also to what M. Daladier described as "certain antitank weapons which have . revealed their power." He proceeded: "Credits have also been allotted for anti-air-craft defence material and for the development of certain modern weapons. Important credits have been granted for new weapons and recent inventions, the need for which will be shown on the battlefield. Experiments of the greatest interest are being carried . out to increase the safety of the country." In this speech M. Daladier also announced that for months all the French armies had been at work pouring concrete and constructing second and third lines of fortifications, and thct the Maginot Line had been completed by more construction in the north and an extension to the Jura Mountains. These fortifications, he said, were riot only necessary for the protection of the French territory; but also for the conduct of the war.