Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, AUGUST 7, 1945 THE MIGHTY ATOM

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 7 August 1945, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, AUGUST 7, 1945 THE MIGHTY ATOM

WHEN victory in Europe permitted an analysis of Germany’6 range of V weapons which disclosed the extent of their propensities the free world, and particularly the people of Britain, shrugged their shoulders and muttered ‘'Just in time!” Too little and too late was the cause of their limited success but they had great and undeniable possibilities. Now the boot appears to be on the other foot for, had the German war continued another three months, a new chapter in chaos would have been opened up by the use of a weapon that has just been employed for the first time against Japan. The secret of the atomic bomb has been closely guarded ; now that it stands revealed the destructive potentialities of this weapon of obliteration are so breath-taking as to suggest that man’s inventive genius has brought us across the threshold of that, terrible H. G. Wells era of warfare.

What happened when the first atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima has yet to be reported. It was sent down in the knowledge that here was a destroyer possessing two thousand times the power of the biggest bomb so far dropped, with a blasting capacity equal to 20,000 tons of T.N.T. British scientists developed the weapon; Americans and Canadians joined in ■ to perfect and manufacture it on a large scale at immense cost. Isolated sites in the two American states of Tennessee and Washington chosen for the factories have now, grown into towns of 75,000 and 17,000 people respectively, figures of mushroom growth which show the scale of production of the atomic bomb and the importance attached to it by the Allies. Apparently all these technicians and workers have kept their secret well.

It would be possible to take unmeasured satisfaction from such a triumph of research and manufacture, grim as it is, were it not for the« chastening thought of the future. The Japanese may well quail at the arrival of the new monster. President Truman has served notice that they are to receive a rain of ruin from the air the like of which has never before been seen on this earth. Mr Churchill describes the bomb as “a terrible means of maintaining the

rule of law.” The invention differs from the V weapons in that the atomic energy which makes the bomb into such a frightful instru-* 4 ment of destruction can also be harnessed for the peaceful purpose of construction. War has brought us to the stage of the exploitation of the mighty atom. Along with radar, jet propulsion and other recent achievements of the scientists it can be set to work to make a better place for the millions to live in or it can be the means of helping to obliterate them or their children from the face of the earth. What man has invented he must now learn to control, The alternatives to the rule of low are alarming to contemplate, a reflection which underlines more heavily than ever the crucial importance of such experiments in international co-operation a? the United Nations. Would that the methods of pure science were increasingly applied to the improvement of this kind of instrument. Man has it in hie po>ver to say whether he will work for the supremacy of the rule of law or whether he will divert his abilities into channels of mutual destruction. It is patent that the human race simply cannot continue to stand up to this progressive perfection of the art of making war