POISON GAS.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XLIX, Issue 149, 7 September 1928, Page 3

POISON GAS.

BEST METHOD OF DEFENCE. as (By Cable. —Press Assn.—Copyright) (Australian Press Assn.—United Service). LONDON, September 6. Recalling the criticisms following the recent air manoeuvres that the authorities are apparently making no effort to provide London with some form of defence against poison gas attacks, the “Times’ ” aeronautical correspondent says: “On the contrary, the authorities are alive to this problem and are actively searching for an antidote for civilian use.”

The correspondent points out that “obviously the more successful that antidote the less necessary it is to demonstrate it and to advance with secrecy in national necessity, even though it may give the impression that nothing is being done.” Japan recently rehearsed a gas attack, serving out gas masks to the population, but the correspondent says: “If London’s preparation for gas attacks is the storage of 10,000,000 gas masks ready for distribution, then London is not prepared now and will not be for many years to come. It is also clear that huge underground shelters are valueless, especially against heavy gas of the mustard type, which creeps along and lies on the ground. They may be efficient against explosive bombs, but against gas the logical refuge appears to be roofs and upper storeys, where gas cannot reach or will become innocuous in contact with free air currents.” The writer adds: “The only effective protection must rest in the use of some readily acquired material, and not in the issue of special apparatus from a central store. That is the ideal aimed at, but the extent to which the authorities have been successful is necessary to be kept secret, as an announcement of a particular defence measure would inevitably lead : to further experiments to find a gas j to defeat the antidote.”