POISON GAS HORRORS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20171, 4 February 1929, Page 9

POISON GAS HORRORS.

NEXT WAR VISUALISED,

DEVASTATION BY BOMBS.

Australian and N.Z. Press Association. (Received February 3. 11.53 p.m.) LONDON, Feb. 2,

'At the Pvoyal Sanitary Institute, Major Humphreys delivered a lecture to-day on the horrors of poison gas in the next war. Tho Er-.rl of Halsbury, a former major in the Royal Air Force, who presided, said that unless they aroused the nation to tho need for organisation it might be faced with tho sleep of death. Lord Halsbury painted a lurid picture of tho effects of a gas attack on London, which he said lio was convinced was coming. Formerly he was an assistant inspector of high explosives in the 3linistrv of Munitions. He was engaged in the closing months of the war in planning long-distance bombardments in Germany. He urged the citizens of London to get into a panic now about instead of waiting until the attack was made- ■

Lord Halsbury stated that Dr. Hans Lion, the head of the German Chemical Warfare Department, had said Germany was going to be tha first nation in chemical warfare, 'and thai, that nation would have the, best weapon ever forged and the most complete Empire of tho world. The speaker recalled that during one sttack on a, 10-mile front in France 350 tons of phosgene gas was used up t\vo volleys. It produced a fatal effect* in two [villages 21 miles away. The same weight of gas could be dropped by 35 aircraft today, with similar results in the Thames [Valley.

The speaker envisaged attack after attack oil London at intervals of two hoars, continuing possibly for two or three days. As a chemist, he said ho was fcure a gas had already been discovered that was worse than anything used in the last war. It was useless to rely on gasmasks, since a mask that was effective iigainst'ouo gas was ineffective against P'.ioihe:'.

Major Humphreys drew a picture of every house fitted with a gas-proof room, of masked detachments of men flushing the streets to destroy liquid poisons before they could disseminate their gases.

'1 he lecturer said it would also bo neccsEary to decontaminate clothing, and to organise motor transport to evacuate the danger zones. One bomb of concentrated liquefied mustard gas could devastate a f><;iiare mile of territory.