pact Sept. 24.
Two events took place during the latter days of he month of August which were a mere coincidence, so far asthe time of their occurrence was concerned, and yet have an intimate bearing on each other. One was the dir maneuvres which took place over London and the other was the signing of the Peace Pact in The Air Force is yet in its infancy and no man can foretell what developments are Vikely to take place in acronautical science. But it is certain that, great as the advance Ihas been' since, say, the war, it is as nothing to what will be accomplished in the years that are to come, And, yet, this imperfect force demonstrated that London, or any large, city, is impossible to defend if attacked from the air. The aeroplanes, true, cannot capture the city. They can only destroy it. But they can do this very thoroughly; even those planes that are shot down carry their bombs with them in their head-Jong drop to earth and these bombs will explode as surely as though they were hurled from the sky with that intent. This fact has been so well understood by the Soviet Government that in their air force operations they structed the civilian populamn to practise taking refuge in underground cellars and had machinery available for pumping air into: these improvised dugouts to counteract the deadly effect of the poison gas which would be released during the attack. The lesson learned from these manquvres was that the only form of defence in the wars cof the future will be a counter attack on the enemy's most populous cities.
Primitive: man went in more read of the terror by night than of the arrow that flieth by day. The air, to him, was peopled by malignant genii who, unseen and inaccessible, poured upon help-Teas humans the vials of thei malevolence, He could, and did, face and conquer, with such rude weapons as his bare hands could fashion, the denizens of the forests' and the marshes, but against those immaterial foes he was defenceless. Science has robbed the air of its supernatural horror, but it has peopled it with more tangible, and as remorseless, enemies. Again mankind is helpless. against danger that threatens his existence. For it is no morbid imagination that conjures up a vision of engines of war so deadly and so efficient that whole populations might well be wiped out of existence by their energy. nation is possessed by the madness of war, treaties become scraps of paper. Skin for skin fall that a man hath will he give telfer his life; and a nation can do no other. We have had treaties of peace before, even a -Holy Alliance, but they were only paper safeguards and wegener:
into instruments of oppression rather than guarantees of peace-Those were made by monarchs who" had in view, chiefly, the stability of their thrones but the new pact, ~according to its author, emanates from the will of the people. The last war imposed such suffering on the nations participating that it unlikely that. another can be created in Europe until a generation grows up that has memory of the past. But as the recollection of past suffering grows dim the'spectre of future frightfulness becomes more menacing. Soldiers.and_ state-men have no illusions about the consequences of the next war, if there is to be a next. To victor and vanquished alike it ~spells suicide and if it spreads over half the earth, as id the last, our civilization will be overwhelmed and it is within the bounds of possibility that the territory of the nations participating in it shall be as desolate as Nineveh and Tyre. China has endured a period of turmoil for the past twenty years. But wai as conducted by Chinese soldiers is not war in the European sense. The civil war in China been devastating enough and has imposed immense suffering and loss on the people but it is, as compared to the effect of war ducted with modern weapons, bows and arrows are to machinegun fire. No analogy can therefore be drawn from the fact that China has been so continually at war and yet the resources of the country are hardly impaired. A war on the European scale would more damage and inflict more suffering in a month than has been caused in China during.th last two year: It is therefore the duty of all who have a concern for the welfare of humanity to further by every means in their power anything that aims Jat putting an end to that most. terrible scourge, a war with modern weapons
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.