Science Is Not A Menace To Peace.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18889, 12 October 1929, Page 19 (Supplement)

Science Is Not A Menace To Peace.

War Is Caused By Statesmen And Soldiers.

Written for the "Star " by PROFESSOR A. M. LOW (The Famous British Scientist.)

Every great discovery of science tends to eliminate war. Machines have brought us safety and security, and if ice are fools enough to ute them for mutual destruction then the fault lies with the soldiers and the statesmen and not with inventors.

SCARCELY a day passes without the announcement of some new weapon which, we are told, will make the next war even more hideous than that of 1914-18. New poison gases, high speed aeroplanes and death rays are all the products of clever scientists, and those who pray for peace are beginning to blame the scientist for war. h ow it is first of all necessary to realise that war is an apparently natural process which Nature- uses to intensify the speed of life. War and peace bear the same relationship to one another as the cabaret and the Greek play. War is a clever device—however unpleasant —for speeding up progress. This is a fact which must be borne in mind, but which is usually forgotten in a welter of leagues, covenants, treaties and talk. To blame scientists for it is even more ridiculous than blaming ♦£ ateSmen ’ for it is only due to science We * cnow meaning of peace

method of keeping the peace, or, as Kipling has put it “Transport is civilisation.” When transport was difficult we used to fight the Scots, but as railways enabled us to reach the north in a few days, we began to realise that they were much the same as ourselves or even better, and we inter-married with that ruling race. So, many years hence, when all parts of the world are as easily reached from London as Glasgow is to-day, our children will look back with horror on the time when we fought our neighbours on the Continent and will probably be content with warlike expeditions to the planets. In the same way wireless is bringing us together. To listen to a foreign station is a better surety of peace than a conference at Geneva. Even war itself may bring peace, as shown by the intermarrying of our soldiers on the Rhine. Man is beginning to realise, through science, that force is easy to develop, but that the mind presents nobler and therefore more interesting problems. Utopia.

ASP °M days, which some people still call good,” no one knew peace. A man slept without peace because he was never sure that his home would not be burned over his head, awoke without peace because he knew he would have to hunt for his breakfast, and kissed his wife good-night without peace because he knew it might be for the last time. ITot the Inventor’s Fault.

Every great discovery of science tends to eliminate war. Family limitation, scientifically conducted, will eliminate one great cause of strife, and it is possible that later we may be able to eliminate warlike men and women altogether with the causes of their mania. That Utopia, however, must be a long way off in an age which still finds boxing exciting. Death rays are the most frequently quoted terror of the next war. As yet n *? effective method has been discovered, but to anyone who understands the principle it is obvious that the invention of such a ray would be far more important to such peaceful pursuits as directional radio and the broadcasting of heat and light than to the killing of human beings. The motor-car brings health and peace, yet it cannot be denied that the knowledge gained in constructing tanks has contributed not a little to the performance of the modern light car.

. Machines have brought us comparauve safety and security. If we are fools enough to use them for mutual destrucuon that is the fault of soldiers and statesmen and not the men who make and invent machinery. Science has created law and order, and the only method for maintaining ttese desirable conditions is at the moment that of force. It has not yet eradicated the antagonistic drift and tie desire to steal. The result is that ve have police who are a standing cfemonstration that the League of Nations is of little use. Police are chosen for strength, and they enforce the arguments of our Courts. Without science there could be no peace and even the inventions of wartime bear fruit in peace. The aeroplane owes much to war when people first realised, for instance, that flying was more important than folk-dancing. Now A peace time flying is the greatest insurance we have against another war. Travel’s Influence.

Blood Sports. All these things point to the fact that war, however unpleasant, is an incident and that when science has been applied to such economy as would render possible the fair distribution of wealth, fighting and other blood sports would be things of the past. I believe that modern man is beginning to see the ridiculousness of busbies and the employment of a peaceloving nation in the manufacture of submarines or the direction of girls to sewing gas masks. Examine all the causes of war and you will find that the progress of science can, or will, eliminate them. Religion was a common reason for fight-

Ybc aeroplane is the harbinger of friendship because it enables people to study the habits, lives and morals of others at close quarters. I have often pointed out that travel is the best

ing a few centuries ago. Then science stepped in and showed that the basis of true religion went much deeper than the observation of certain creeds. Europe, at least, the farce of religious warfare seems to be finished. Starvation is another cause and even that is disappearing with the advent of cheap transport or the preparation of synthetically complete foods. Britain Most Warlike. ’ It seems that the countries which en-

courage scientific rather than classic education will forge ahead and fight less. There has never been a more warlike country than Britain, simply because we are imperialists and do not care about science. We have not done so much in the cause of science as Germany, or Russia since the war, and the scientist is still regarded as “rather a common man." While we have been busy fighting, other nations have been busy discovering.

Of the terrible and gruesome methods of fighting which science has provided, it is only necessary to say this. It was once thought that the introduction of ‘‘villainous saltpetre” would end war because of its terror But war has become more and more scientific so that the present aim of military chemists is to frighten and temporarily disable their opponents rather than to kill. The next war may last only a day owing to the anaesthetic bombs paralysing the whole industry of a country. Certainly mustard gas, which killed

iiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiimninnininn fewer men than high explosive, was a more effective weapon. Far from being a menace to peace, science is its very soul. The scientist cares nothing for fighting. It is the statesman with an axe to grind and the labourer who wants employment that keep our armaments inflated or waste money on huge buildings in which peace may be discussed against a background of money, suspicious red coats and cruisers! (Anglo-American N.S.—Copyright.)