USE OF ATOMIC BOMB

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 227, 24 August 1945, Page 5

USE OF ATOMIC BOMB

REPLY TO MORALISTS

(Rec. 10.55 a.m.) LONDON, Aug. 23. Sir George Thomson, head of the British scientists who worked on the production of the atomic bomb, said lie could not see atomic force being used in motor-cars or aeroplanes for about a century.

Sir George added that the moralists who were proclaiming against the wickedness of the bomb’s use were w*-jng. It was much better that the atomic bomb should have been used and its power shown than that it should have been developed by various Governments in competition and made secretly without any knowing whether a rival whs on the point of success or if the weapon really had the power expected from it. It was at least known what to expect, and that knowledge would be the greatest force for peace and sanity. He did not agree that these advantages could have been possessed if the scientists had refused to develop it. They had pressed on with desperate energy to develop their knowledge, the object being to finish olf the Japanese war. . . Except for local radio activity the effects of the atomic bomb a.re completely harmless until the moment of detonation, says the New York Her-ald-Tribune in an editorial. There would seem to be no way in which a defender could explode them prematurely. There was no technical reason why the United States should not manufacture and store enough of them to blow half the world’s cities to bits at a few hours’ notice. Peaceable uses for tbe new power were less immediately promising; there was no present prospect of chaining and utilising the energy released by the bomb.