THE NEXT WAR.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXVIII, Issue 10724, 23 October 1928, Page 9

THE NEXT WAR.

IS IT WISE TO TALK OF IT?

PICTURES OF DESTRUCTION

Sir Frank Fox. in his /"'The Mastery of the Pacific,” deals with the necessity for the British Empire and the United States to agree as to the policy they should adopt on the peace problem. In a notable foreword he protests against those who conjecture as to the horrors of the next war with its aeriaL conflicts, for he believes their prophecies are a' distinct' hindrance to peace. He writes-. “War is an obscene word; more especially to thpse who give any logical thought to the character of the next Great War, if such a calamity should come. Whenever there recurs in this country, or in other countries, an alarm about Air Force, the fact that*in the next Great- War between Powers which boast- themselves civilised' the use of Air Force will be ’ intensified is stressed.

“The argument is enforced with dreadfully truthful forecasts of the role in the future of the bombing aeroplane. It- will be able to carry bombs weighing a ton. These will be filled, sometimes with high explosives. sometimes with deadly gases which will creep along the ground for hundreds of yards from the point of discharge, killing everything they meet. London might be destroyed as a habitable city within an hour of the Declaration of War by the operations of a great fleet of bombing planes. “S'o the argument proceeds. The end of it- always i.s an urging to prepare: to get ready thousands of bombing aeroplanes, great stores of enormous bombs, of cylinders holding a gas which will be at once poisonous, heavy in specific gravity, and capable of being safely transported m highly condensed form.

“The. dismal argument' marches stage by stage to the conclusion that in the next great war armies will count for less, navies for less, and the most effective killer will be the. bombing aeroplane. There the march usually stops. But I suggest to follow it to its logical conclusion.

“That conclusion, if we are still to discuss the future of the world in terms of warfare, should bo that the statesmen of any nation who'have a reasonable forethought for their nation’s survival should insist at once on the stoppage of all above-ground building ; the dispersal of all art collections ; the cessation of any care for gardens, parks, or auglit else on the surface of the earth, since all such things are evidently doomed to a transient existence. They should concentrate the resources of the nation on these three things:“(l) The provision of subterranean accommodation for all the population of the country, “(2) Scientific research to seek out some form of fungus vegetation, capable of supporting life, which could be cultivated underground, and also to realise, if possible, Mr. H. G. Wells’ idea of the Moon oxen. “(3) The provision of the: 'Utmost possible number of ’bombing aeroplanes and the perfection of high explosives' and poison gases. “Can anyone deny that this is the true logic of the position if we recognise alike the • defensive and the offensive, aspects of a future Great War? Are there any great- numbers of men to whom it' would lie a source of comfort to know that, whilst they and those who wore dear to them were gasping out their lives in a poi-son-gas cloud in one street,'the same horror was being' inflicted by their Air Forces on the populatoin of sonic other city? I think not. If there is to be a. Great War.- in the future,

wo must prepare to go back to the Troglodyte life and scrap now all of our civilisation which depends on our joy in the sun, in the air which wo know as the air of heaven, in the forests, fields, gardens, and the -liores of the sen. “In that future Great Mar the chief dignitaries of a warring nation will be the prisoners-in-chief and'the aerial transport commanders. Cities will end in a day. The remnants ot populations will burrow underground, coming to the surface only to discharge their lethal air fleets against thejr enemies (and perhaps, in the earlier stages of a campaign. to snatch from the surface- ot the earth some scanty provision of food). Arts, commerce, will wither away as the. clouds of poison gas roll over country after countrv. "War is an obscene word: most especially when it is used in relation to the affairs of two nations professing the same humane ideals, speaking the same language, having pride in common partnership in most of modern civilisation’s great achievements for freedom and progress, using day by day the same prayer invoking the Kingdom of God to come on earth and beseeching ±he Almighty not to ‘lead us into temptation.’ “Truly, war is an obscene word. But was Metternieh right that it is never to be used because familiarity with the word will create familiarity with the idea? Or are the reckless talkers and writers who refer to it- as a possibility perhaps doing something to make war impossible by discussing the idea of it in what would be its most wicked, most stupid, and most disastrous form?"

ENGINKERS’ AND WAR

A MEMORABLE ADDRESS

. A memorable address was recently delivered in London and .published in the “Outlook.” The occasion was the centenary celebrations of tho Institution of Civil Engineers, and the speaker was Sir Alfred Ewing, one of the most distinguished of living engineers, who during the war was iii charge of the department of the Admiralty dealing with the enemy cipher. “The fact remains,” ho said, “thatall our efforts to apply the sources ot power in 'Nature to the use and convenience of man, successful as they are in creating for him new capacities, new comforts, new habits, ■ leave him at. bottom much wliat be was before. I used as a young teacher to'think that* the splendid march of discovery and invention, with its penetration of the secrets of Nature, its consciousness of power, its absorbing mental interest, its unlimited possibilities of benefit, was, m fact, accomplishing some bettermentof .the character of man. I thought that the assiduous study of engineering could not fail to soften lus primitive instincts, and it must develop a sense ot law and order and righteousness. “But the war came* and I realised the moral failure of applied mechanics. It was a shock to find that, a nation’s eminence in this department of intellectual "effort did nothing to prevent a "reversion to savagery, conscienceless, unbridled, made only the more brutal by its vastly enhanced: ability to; hurt. I saw _ that, the wealth' of' product-s and ideas with which the engineer had enriched mankind might be prostituted to ignoble use. It served to equip the. nations with engines of destruction incomparably more potent find ruthless than any known before. 'We had put into the hand of civilisation a weapon far deadlier than the weapons'of barbarism, and there was nothing to stay her hand. •

•‘Civilisation, in fact, turned ’it weapon upon herself. The arts o the engineer had. indeed, been effec lively learnt, but. they had not chan ged man’s soul. In our diligent cui ti vat ion of these arts we engineer have perhaps forgotten that progres m them has far outstripped the eth :cai progress of the race. M~e hav. given the child a sharp-edged tool he fore he has the sense to handle i wisely. M’e have given him the pow or to do irreparable mischief when h hardly knows the difference be twee: right and wrong. “Does it not follow that the dut; of leadership is to educate his jud° ment and his conscience Collectiv moral sense., collective political re sponsibility, the divine maxim to <1 to others as we would that th’e; should do to us—these are lessons i: respect, of which all the nations, eve the most progressive, have siTTUmu. to learn. ' “There are people who talk glibl of tho next- great war. I wonder : they know hew near in the last wa the world came to dest-ructio through misapplying the endowmer which it owes to the engineer? E they realise that with added exper once and further malignant ingem ity that weapons of a future w: will he more than over deadly, moi than ever indiscriminate, and tl peril to civilisation will be indeii: itely increased. “Surely iits for the engiener, ; much as any man, to pray for a spi itual awakening, to strive after su< a growth of sanity as wi'l prove: the gross misuse of his good gift: For it- is the engineer who, in t! course, of his labors to promote tl comfort- and convenience of man, n put into man's unchecked and cat less hand a monstrous potentiality ruin."