THE COLONIST. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 1915. COTTON AS CONTRABAND.

Colonist, Volume LVII, Issue 13731, 20 March 1915, Page 4

THE COLONIST. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. SATURDAY, MARCH 30, 1915. COTTON AS CONTRABAND.

A cable message appearing among our war news to-day states that Sir William Ramsay, the eminent scientist, has advised the French Minister of War that it would be greatly to France's interest to treat cotton as contraband, ultimately forcing Germany to resort to ordinary gunpowder, which does not suit modern guns. The advice is probably some weeks old, a<s Germany has by her own act deprived herself to a very large extent of her cotton supplies by forcing the Allies to declare contraband everything destined for Germany, including goods which, in the ordinary usages of war, are not capable of bearing that definition. There are, however, substantial reasons for cotton being declared contraband under any circumstances, and it is surprising that Great Britain should have allowed cargoes of it free passage up till the moment of her retaliation' against the submarine piracy. Mr Hilaire Belloc, in an article in the issue of "Land and Water "' of January 30th, advances the same advice as Sir William Ramsay, in much stronger terms. "When you allow cotton to go into Germany," he ■says, "you are behaving exactly as though the Germans had allowed train load after train load of good old-fash-ioned black powder to come week by week through their lines into Paris during the great siege of 1870. ■ You are supplying the enemy with a lethal weapon just as much as though you were to send an order to some neutral country begging them to cast heavy artillery for the benefit of the Germans, and undertaking to let those guns enter Germany without molestation. And you are in particular permitting Germany to obtain that one element in her power of killing your soldiers which she cannot supply of herself." Mr Belloc supports this sweeping statement by - reminding us that every explosive charge which launches a missile in modern war is simply cotton treated in a particular fashion, or "nitrated." The proportion in which it is nitrated gives it its explosive character or lack of chemical equilibrium. Wherever a, modern weapon is discharged cotton is the stuff that launches the missile. All the factories have their plant for the treatment hy nitration of cotton, and it is in terms of cotton that every operative and engineer connected with the process has thought of it for years. The chemicals whereby cotton is subjected to the process of nitration which turns it from a harmless vegetable product to an explosive are obtainable by Germany and Austria in spite of the blockade, but cotton cannot be produced in Europe at all. It is a sub-tropical product, and the three great sources of it are the Southern States of the American Union, India, and Egypt. Cotton is not the only substance which can be used for the purpose of making the explosive. Wood pulp has been employed,, and almost any substance capable of absorbing a fluid, of fixing elements in it, and of subsequent dissection and moulding into any shape, might:.take the place in theory of cotton. But that does not lessen the importance of preventing German access to cotton: supplies. The check that would be produced by a stoppage of cotton supplies may be compared to the check that would follow a sudden change of calibre in armament. It would mean the erection of now plant for the manufacture of that all-important military material, the charge used in guns and rifles, and it would mean what is perhaps more important under the strain of war, now habits in the workman and his chiefs. It would mean a host of new experiments and delays, and the production of much bad material. It would be a very severe check upon the enemy for a prolonged space in the war, and a permanent drag upon him throughout the war. It is a commodity of which Germany does not possess extensive stocks, and it does not remain in stock long, for it is rapidly manufactured. The cutting off of further supplies of cotton to Germany means depriving her Of the one most! obvious and purely military necessity which she necessarily lacks.