THE HORRORS OF WAR.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3828, 7 August 1928, Page 4

THE HORRORS OF WAR.

Speculation regarding the character of “the next war” is discussed by Sir Frank Fox in a foreword to a book on the mastery of the Pacific. He-suggests that the argument that bombing aeroplanes will count for more than armies and navies should be followed to its logical conclusion. “That conclusion should be that statesmen should insist at once on the stoppage of all aboveground building; the dispersal of all art collections; the cessation of any care for gardens, parks or aught else on the surface of the earth, since all such things are evidently doomed to a transient existence,” he writes. “They should the resources of the nation on these three things: The provision of subterranean accommodation for all the population of the country; scientific research to seek out some form of fungus vegetation, capable of supporting life, which could be cultivated underground; the provision of the utmost possible number of bombing aeroplanes and the perfection of high explosives and poison gas. 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? Cities will disappear in a day. The remnants of populations will burrow underground, coining to the surface only to discharge their lethal air fleets against their enemies (and perhaps, in the earlier stages of a campaign, to snatch from the surface of the earth some scanty provision of food). Arts, commerce, will wither away as the clouds of poison gas roll over country after country. Truly war is an obscene, word. - But was Mettcrnich right that it is never to be used because familiarity with the world 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?”