TIMELY TOPICS

Northern Advocate, 7 February 1934, Page 6

TIMELY TOPICS

A NEW STRATEGY In the December number of the “Fighting Forces,” Lord Davies asks, inasmuch as by the Covenant and the j Pact most armies are no longer fighting forces, but police forces, what the strategy of the law-abiding nations is to be when they are confronted with the aggression of a Power outside the League. The policing role, ho points out, is at a disadvantage against an aggressor, in that the aggressor strikes first; moreover a nation can be imagined preparing carefully for the day in secrecy under a dictator; it would swoop down on the air force of another country without warning. How can purely defensive and policing strategy counter the danger? First, Lord Davies suggested, by the closest possible co-operation among all the members of the defensive group, and, secondly, by the stationing of the League Air Force in headquarters and bases outside the radius of a surprise attack, because the fear of reprisals is the only deterrent and safeguard against such an attack and in no other way con the defensive group neutralise their inability to deliver the first blow. 3> <s> <♦> <«> <£> STRATOSPHERIC FLYING. The popular belief' that stratospheric flying is possible for human beings only if they are contained in a hermetically sealed chamber* has boon challenged by an experiment made with a- modified diving suit, writes the aeronautical correspondent ’of the “Morning Post.” Using this suit, a young man entered an air-tight chamber in which the air was progressively rarified until the barometer stood at only three-quarters of an inch, the pressure equivalent to that of the atmosphere at a height of about 90,000 1 feet. He suffered no discomfort, and j the deduction drawn from the experi-: incut is that the sealed cockpit is un-j necessary. The experiment is based on the views which Professor P. S. Haldane has expressed on this subject. His belief is that pressure is loss ini- j portant than oxygen. The accepted J view has been fha tthe human frame | must suffer at heights above about j 45,000 ft unless it is protected against I the decreasing pressures. Hence the. sealed containers of recent strain- j sphere balloons and the assumption that the stratosphere aeroplane of the | future must have a sealed cockpit. The new idea appears to depend partly on pressure and partly on oxygon. <s> <s> <S> <s> <S> WORDS OF WISDOM. To ease another’s heartache is to forget one’s own. —Lincoln.

TALE OP THE DAY. “I don’t know whether to buy a house or a car.” > “Buy a house, get a mortugago on it, and buy a ear with the money—then you will have both.” 1