DESTRUCTION OF LONDON.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 29 November 1924, Page 12

DESTRUCTION OF LONDON.

HOW MANY BOMBS WOULD BE REQUIRED. .t ' Pacific circles now assembled for the International'.'Peace Congress in Germany are deeply stirred by the accounts that have reached them" this weekvof the great debate at The Hague on the disarmament question (writes a Berlin correspondent). The meeting is of general interest to England, and to .Londoners in particular. For Holland in its entirety possesses something like the population pf the area of Greater London, and for convenience sake London and the possibility of the destruction of lief inhabitants within a very few hours formed one of the principal theses of the debate.

The speakers represented many countries. It was a Dutch delegate in Geneva who urged complete world disarmament for safety’s sake; basing his argument on the plea that finds most favour in the strong pacifist circles of the small countries, Holland and Denmark. This maintains that complete helplessness, a moral weapon, is the best protection of the weak against the strong. He met with scant response, least of all from his own countrymen, for it is an open secret to-day that Germany’s original plan at the beginning of the Great V 7 ar was to march through Holland. She was prevented from carrying out this plan owing to the superior efficiency and numbers of the Dutch over the Belgian army. General Snyder himself, who was responsible for the condition of this army, went 'on the platform as a matter of what he considered duty, against th e pernicious efforts of the pacifists to undermine a nation’s natural sense of self-protec-tion, . His opponent was'a leading Democrat, Professor Van Embden, who has been striving passionately for the caiise of disarmament for the past year. This is a vital question ■to Holland in view of her powerful neighbour, "not of to-day, but for a hundred years hence.

I it IS persistently repeated to-day 0 n | tiie Continent, though iust as persist;ently questioned, that Edison is rej sponsible for the statement that Lon- ; don’s whole population could be annijhilated in a very few hours by the new ■ -Lev, eside gas in bombs thrown trom j not more than twenty or thirty aeroj planes. This, the principal argument |ot his pacifist opponent, the Dutch I general proceeded to tear to pieces on [the principle that never was a method [or attack yet invented which did not I almost immediately call forth suecessrul counter-methods of defence. He based his thesis on the practical experiences of the. Great War and on French writers, who have calculated that to , M Vifch complete success o»,OUU,(XJO kilogrammes of bombs would be necessary, hurled from 19,000 aeroplanes, each carrying 2000 kilogrammes of bombs. Under the most favourable conditions it would take 200 pieces of aircraft eighty-five nights to carry out their task successfully and conditions premise not only insufficient means of defence, but consistently perfect weather for th e air fleet. .

Hie Dutch artillery captain, Maas, who lias studied air conditions in the hrench Army, computes the present f rench au ‘ strength at something between 250 and 300 heavy machines for bombardment purposes, of which some two-thirds only would be fit for immediate use. These could not carry more than Vo,ooo kilogrammes weight of bombs, and would he. totally incapable of destroying a whole great centre of population at one fell swoop. B v the time the proper number would be ready and equipped, its stands to reason that the defence of London, or Holland as the case may. be, must have reached a probably equal standard of efficiency ft is significant that, whereas the pacifist spoke, at great length in appreciative silence,, the. general’s audience was restive, and interrupted continually. ■ lhe whole affair, occurring at the moment when the new Zeppelin is pietmocl everywhere,* has stirred German pacifist imagination to the depths.