GAS ATTACKS

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVIII, Issue 240, 7 September 1928, Page 7

GAS ATTACKS

LONDON’S DEFENCE

AUTHORITIES ALIVE TO PROBLEM.

SECRECY NECESSARY

(United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.)

(Times Cables.) LONDON, Sept. 6. Recalling the criticisms following the recent air manoeuvres, that the authorities are apparently making no effort to provide London with some form of defence against poison gas attacks, the Times’s aeronautical correspondent states: “On the contrary, the authorities are alive to this problem, and are actively searching for an antidote for civilian use.” The correspondent points out: “Obviously the more successful the antidote the less necessary it is to demonstrate it, and io advance with secrecy is a national necessity, even though it may give an impression that nothing is being done.” Japan recently rehearsed a gas attack, serving out gas masks to tho population. Tho correspondent goes on to stato: “If Loudon’s preparation for gas attacks is the storage of ten million gas masks ready for distribution, then London is not prepared now, and will not be for many years to come. It is also clear that huge underground shelters aro valueless, especially against a heavy, gas of the mustard type, which creeps along and lips on the ground. . Such shelters may be effective against explosive bombs, but against gas the logical refuge appears to bo roofs and upper .stories, where the gases cannot reach, or will become innocuous in contact with the free air currents.” . “The onlyUcffective protection must rest in the use of some . readilyacquired material, and not ■in the issue of special apparatus from a central store. That is tho ideal aimed at, but the extent to which the authorities have been successful is necessary to bo kept secret, as an announcement of a particular defence measure would inevitald- lead to funtilar experiments to find a gas to defeat tho antidote.