Evening Star Newspaper, March 22, 1931, Page 27

NATIONS PLAN BIG EFFORT TO CUT LAND AIR FORCES Program for Conference Next February Gives Much Attention to Serious Phases of Modern Warfare. BY RAYMOND LESLIE BUELL. ‘LANS are being Iaid for the world disarmament conference, which will meet néxt February under auspices of the League of Na- tions. It is exj)ecfied that every nation in the world, including the United States, will attend. At this con- ference a gigantic effort will be made to limit and reduce the armies, navies and air forces of each government. As a result of the Washington and London conferences, the task of limiting navies already has been !\n‘l‘l‘u'led t:lr merlfil;:e powers. But em of - g ize of armies and of air forces remains. YAfficult as the work of limiting land armaments promises to be, it may rove even more difficult to limit air ?orees in a satisfactory manner. At the same time, the importance of put- ting some curb upon a method of war- fare which has only recently c‘ome tx;o: existence grows more appare: When wars were fought with armies and navies alone, & distinction was made between military and non- combatant forces, the latter being im- mune from attack. But with the de- velopment of military aircraft, fears have been exp that in the next war this distinction will come to an end. Edward P. Warner, recently Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Aeronautics and_now editor of Aviation, declares, “The most serious of the airplane’s effect upon the conduct of war is the prospect that it brings of the termina- tion of the immunity of civil popula- tion.” * * * It is the prevalling beliet that there can be no assyrance against such attack in-view of the great pos- sible military advantages, and that in a long and hard war in the future, if not indeed in every outbreak of hos- tilities, such raids as were made on London * from 1014 to 1918 would become a daily event.” France Studying Strategy. of the deepest thinking upon of military strategy has re- cently come out of France. Last year Admiral Castex published a book on the theory of straf which seriously ¢ |vide a safe refuge against bombs. "olllr inst efense : agains! of ‘sechnical Po- | continue to exist. United States. But the ited States could quickly crush them ase of attack. the Orient still 13 fjeass i largely to geography, therefore, is not nearly so much concerned with the problem of air defense as are European tries. ‘The chief method of attack employed by an enemy plane is bombing. There during air attacks, will suffer from the fear of being burned to death. Bombs may also beich forth poison- ous gases and microbe cultures, the object of which is to bring death to civilian and military populations. Ac- cording to scme authorities, if a bomb ying from 500 to 600 kiios of phos- | gene were discharged inside a struc- ture, the concentration would be so great that even those persons pro- tected by masks would succumb. As a result of an accident several years ago in Haml an escaping cloud of phosgene gas rendered a number of people unconscious 18 kilometers away from the scene of the accident. £0 far as the use of microbe cultures % concerned, a number of doctors be- leve that the airplane may use such cultures to contaminate an enemy pop- effect it is bound to have upon morale. Imagine an air attack upon a great city such as Paris or London. Ordinary bombs would aim to destroy the city’s water supply, blow up factories and spread disease germs. _Incendiary bombs would alm to set houses and factories on fire. Other bombs would aim at’ attacking the city’s source of light and power, as & result of which there would be no means of combating the fire or of rendering first aid. Rail- roads and other forms of communica- | tion would be singled out for attack. The danger from the air may thus take a thousand forms. The very fact that the precise nature and type of attack cannot be predicted will con- tribute to the demoralfzation of both military and civilian populations. Con- sequently, for European nations at least, the problem of adequate defense against air attack is receiving increased attention. Col. Vauthier” preaches the doctrine that the best means of preventing an enemy attack from the air is to take the offensive and destroy the enemy's air base. Each country, therefore, he argues, must have an adequate force of military planes for defensive pur- poses. Likewise, it must have anti-air- craft artillery and machine guns. Each military force should have an Intelli- gence Service which will know the ra- dius of action and location of enemy planes, enemy methods of attack and meteorological conditions. Would Remove Populations. In time of war, to detect the ap- proach of planes at night, special ap- g:ntux having acoustic properties must provided, as well as listening posts, searchlights and balloon aprons. Enemy planes may be diverted from their ob- Jective by decoys, whether in the form of smoke screens or of artificial lights. Although he urges the development of these methods, Col. Vauthier does not believe they will be adequate to anenn attack. Consequently, he out- ines a series of preventive measures, Arrangements must be made so that at the moment of air attack part of the population may be instaritly removed from the city, as if they were going to take a week end, and those who remain may be removed to shelter. Gas masks should be available for the entire civil population and fireproof caves, located more than 50 feet under- ground, should be dug, so as to proA- system of air pumps must be installed . |8nd the caves must be made as gas- ble. Subway tunnels unde: tht be utllized for these pur- Col. Vautier’s opinion, . may prove in- adequate. Consequently, the cities of Europe should be reconstructed so as to be less vulnerable to attack. He pro- poses that Prench cities should be made , that the water systems be im- proved, that houses be regrouped so as to diminih the surface covered with . _He contends that such measures will not only serve to strengthen the defenses against air at- u‘cké“gut they will advance the cause o Yet even if all these measures were taken the danger from the air would “It is a terrible dan- ger, perhaps a decisive and mortal dan- ger, for a nation which neglects it. ... None of the means of active de- that. en enemy the national t known can guarantee planes will not fly over sky.” In the 1928 air ex- progress in air limitation has made than in any other branch of ar- mament. This is partly because the air- arm is comparatively new. The fear has been also expressed that any liymi- tation upon military aviation might hamper -the development of non-mili- . | tary aviation, a development which al- has meant much to world com- lons. Moreover, it is difficult between non-military and military planes which may not be used for combative purposes upon the out- break of war. Allies Abandon Own Raules. difficulty arose when the allies to enforce aircraft prohibi- tions upon Germany. The peace treat- ies provided that Germany could not maintain any military aircraft. Never- theless, they did not forbid civil- avia- tion. After a long discussion of whether it was possible to draw up a satisfac- tory basis for distinction, the Supreme Council finally drew up nine rules on November 6. 1922. Germany contended, however, that these rules not only pro- hibited military aircraft, but also se- verely handicaped civil aviation. Fol- lowing the conclusion of the Locarno agreements in October, 1925, the nine rules became a dead letter. At present, while Germany is still obliged not to maintain military planes, it has one of the strongest civil avia- tion industries in Europe, and the fear is expressed that, should war break out, these civil planes could be converted muj to ulstion with plague, cholera, typhoid dysentery, typhus and other | diseases. Planes Seen as Transports. | In the third place airplanes may use | explosives as & means of destroying objectives. Such was the purpose of the German raids upcn Paris during the World War. An airplane today may carry two tons of bombs which is about two or three times the capacity of the largest artillery. And it is esti- mated that a bomb of 500 kilos will te 13 meters underground, so that in future warfare it will be almost tmpcssible for even the heaviest struc- ture to avold being destroyed by air attack. Alrplanes also may attack other planes by means of small cannon or machine guns. And Col. Vauthier points out that there is nothing to pre- vent the plane of the future from land- ing detachments of men, armed with it will play a in the future. strike swiftly, and the ttack always will be present, how extensive anti-aircraft become. ‘This fear from the uch more intense than the land armies or from the sea - |of security, simply because instantly for military purposes, thus rendering useless the prohibition of the present treaties. During the sessions of the Prepara- tory Commission for the Disarmament Conference, held in Geneva, all of the delegates except those from Germany and the United States contended that |civil aviation was of highly potential | military value. France, Italy and six }omer governments went so far as to propose that, in order to be efficient, |any method for air limitation must provide for the limitation of military and civil aviation as a whole, other- wise any reduction in military craft alone would be counterbalanced by an expansion in civil craft. The other governments, however, re- | fused to consider the limitation of ‘eivil aviation, and all that the draft con- | vention,” which is to be the basis of discussion at the forthcoming confer- ence, provides is that the number and total horsepower, as well as personnel of military craft, should be limited. Plane Built Overnight. From the theoretical standpoint, the limitation of civilian as well as military aircraft might be effective except for one important fact. Although it takes many months to drill an efficlent army or to build battleships or cruisers, mili- tary aircraft may be bullt almost over- night. Thus, at the end of the World ‘War, the monthly outputs of the United States and Germany equaled 2,000 planes, or a number esent military air strength of the nited States. The air strength of the powers in war time will not be deter- mined, "hfim‘"i’y -ommuch by llml‘uuntn agreements as > capacity of out- put following the outbreak yol ‘war, ;h:ch no treaty can attempt to con- ol While an agreement providing for the teduction in military aircraft may re- sult in certain economies, such an agreem:nt is not lkel possibility of war nor ml fer sense difm- culty of preve the than the | dilemma is ‘HE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, MARCH 22, 1931—PART TWO. What Faces Author in U. S. Thi BY JOHN ERSKINE. HEN Sinclatr Léwis received the Nobel Prize, he made some comments, with char- abteristic gusto, on the con- dition of literature in the United States. We have to thank him for calling attention to a matter which most of his countrymen would other- wise overlook. Because of his plain words many of us are more clearly aware of the American author as an BY HENRY W. BUNN. HE following is a brief summary of the most important news of the world for the seven days ended March 21, 1931. x %k * BRITISH EMPIRE. — Again, on March 16, the MacDonald govern- ment was defeated in the Commons, 246 to 242, in & vote upon a clause in the electoral reform bill pro‘gzsmg abol- ftion of representation of universi- ties in the Commons. Of course, there were lusty criesof “Resign, resign,” but long ago Mr. MacDonald announced that the government would resign only in uence of defeat on a major issue or of a vote of censure, and he did not consider a major issue. The Conservative position was fairly summed up in Lord Hugh Cecil's statement that the government would “sacrifice the university members to the god of equalitarian democracy,” as to which it might be remarked that there ain’t no such animal. Home Secretary Clynes humorously obeerved that “the more educated people are the less they require representation in Parliament.” ‘The business was settled against the government by the Simon group of Lib- erals and by certain Laborites who con- sidered that the clause imported La- borite repudiation of the special value of a university education, indeed, stul- tified the Laborite efforts, now crowned with success, for “an open road to the universities.” I fafled to notice in my last week's summary the sudden death of Vernon Hartshorn, lord privy seal in the Brit- ish government. That government has been rather hard hit recently; 'the deaths of Mr. Hartshorn and of Earl Russell, undersecretary of state for India, and the resignation of Charles Trevelyan, minister of education, and of Lord Arnold, paymaster general (the latter on account of ill health). Mr. Hartshorn rose from an obscure beginning in a mining community. He had some reputation as a parliamen- tary orator; even stood up effectively on occasion to Stanley Baldwin and Lloyd George. He was an active leader in the coal industry, served on the Simon Commission, and probably hastened his death by zeal in dealing with unem- ployment problems. Henry Snell, Laborite M. P., goes to the House of Lords and becomes under- secretary for India in succession fo civilian planes to military purposes and because of the quickness with which planes may be constructed following the outbreak of war. On the other hand, the danger of by the ft. fundamental solution for this to establish machinery that will prevent the outbreak of war and remove the causes of disputes which have forced nations into war. The rudiments of such machinery already exist in the League of Nations and the World Court. The only safe means of protect! civilian populations against alr atf lies in strengthening this machinery, so that war will not break out. Once a substitute for war is found, once find security in int their armaments will cease to think of of air, influence for good or evil. Whether or not we agree with Mr. Lewis' spe- cific judgments, many of us have been inspired by what he saild to make our private inventory and estimate of the powers and limitations of authorship in our land at this moment. Mr. Lewis named certain writers whom he likes very much, and certain others whom he does not like at all. If time had served, doubtless he could have expanded both lists to a still more impressive length. Speaking on & con- Earl Russell. Maj. Attlee, M. P, be- comes postmaster general, and Lord Ponsonby becomes chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Henry Snell began work as & farm hand at the age of 8. Then he was & potman in a public house. next a groom, and later a clerk. While clerk- ~GOOD Country Is at Once a Well of -Opportunity and Tremendous Discdnragemem. LIMITATION UPON CROPS, LIKE NAVY CUT, FORESEEN Issue Expected to Arise in International Agriculture Congress as Farm Relief ote— t the fifteentn Inter- ug':'ngun"}:o'n"v‘u"“o T ATure meets af " Pragu ll;fill'l, Ninety-two i “'im They 1 coun that beset the he il oer” Blscussing the porsibiities s bt The posst in these fnoe e discussed in the followin cle:. BY H. H. SHELDON. ) 'HEN the fifteenth Interna- tional Congress of 1- ture meets at Prague, Czech- slovakia, from June 5 to 8. the problems which it will discuss will be vastly different from those which were considered not many years ago in the first conferences. In fact, the changes which have taken place in agriculture since this con- first met have been more pro- md than the changes made during the previous century. e 3 epoAog, meAimeephee vk a5 undergoing mef al e ‘m. One can say that dur the past 15 years the past. 5 h‘n";le 1d thse gflut nl(nln;:'ance. el‘lll:: o past 5, past year has m more nlnn %{m olt.hg Such is the pace of agricultural change. ‘When congress first met the problem of agriculture was to feed an ever increasing world population with an ever diminishing number of farm workers. There was never a thought in the minds of any one that the time would come when it would not bg pos- sible to sell all that the farms™ could produce either at home or abroad. The problem was to find land enough and produce enough to meet the require- ments of an ever increasing market. Shows Times Changed. ‘The general program, announced by the De) ent of ture, indi- cates extent to which the times have changed. Broadly speaking, it may be said to raise the how “best to control luction. on & world basis, and how to get the sur- plus manpower out of the picture with the minimum loss in readjustment. In can imagine that direct discussion of pic is likelp to forth much debate. It is not that any association present will feel that the country which it represents should be the one to curtail production. Perhaps the most valuable of the Plan. telligence he has used rather than to the brawn that has been Such protection may take many farme ers out of competition with the masses and make thfln rmdueers of rare and valuable commodities that are at pres- ent non-existant. But while all these groups of the In- ternational Congress go on discussing the possibilities of getting the farmer out of his present difficulties, others m;lnu new ways of mak- . They discuss new fertilizers that will M&‘Luln more prod- uce on fewer acres, new strains of cattle that will give twice as much milk on half the feed, new farm ma- chines that will do twice as much work with half the number of men. It seems that these negative ends of the congress are in a pretty fair po- sition to more than offset any plans which may be made to heip the farmer in the present crisis. This is progress, and it is, apparently, neither possible nor desirable to stop it. We must find a way of giving more y for fewer hours and solve the lem of what to do with the leisure time which we are most certainly accumulating for ourselves. D’Anmmzio;s Rival Gets - Something to Remember D’Annunzio’s place as Italy's first poet remains secure. Angelo Serbati, a Genoese cobbler, Srmpeteric pubisners could. put on sympathetic pul put on the market, and, surprising enough, this despite the fact that he modestly claimed to be the superior of D’Annun- zio wheln_ it came to literary efforts. estion as’ to | 5P Iceland Grows Crops By Use of Hot Springs OSLO, Norway.—Experiments been conducted for heat bath houses. from the hot springs ble results. All sorts of vegetables have been produced all year and the time is now within view when Iceland will be independent of imported vegetables. It is proposed, as the next step, to organ- 1ze export vegetables. Icelanders say that it is not too opti- mistic to reckon with Iceland as the exporter of vegetables to Scandi- —Drawn for The Sunday Star by Stockton Mulford. | tua] tinent where literature has been culti- vated to a ripe perfection, he implied that the American reader is not yet ready to appreciate the best books or the best plays, that only a minority of us are grateful for what the accom- gll&hed artist, the honest thinker, can ring us, that the majority of us try to get from an author only such neutral and enervating entertainment as no he- writer would care to 3 From this it of the American reader one t conclude that s sane ing he attended :Tottingham University College and later the London School of Economics, and Le rounded off his education at Heldelberg. He is the first manual worker to be “elevated” to the peerage. He has chosen to be called “Lord Snell of Plumstead.” The battle rages fiercely between | edl NEWS BY BRUCE BARTON. & AST Summer I went to I a white church in a New England town. The preacher for the day was a famcus man from a big city, who happened to have a Summer home nearby. The church was only about one-tenth filled. Even this famous name was not enough to full people away from the cool woods and beaches. ‘When the preacher arose to announce his test,-I thought: “Now we’ll catch it. We shall be told that these empty pews mean that the world is going to the dogs. We shall hear a half-hour of lament about hu- man wickedness. We few, who have come to church, shall be crucified for the sins of those who have stayed away.” I have listened to many church sermons and I am sick of them. But I was due for a pleasant surprise. He announced a text from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. He explained that in this passage Paul was really making a plea for a %enerous collection from the orinthians for the strugglin churches elsewhere. He had an ulterior motive, but ‘hat does not change the fact \hat the whole chaj is full of praise for the thians. Having told them how kind they are, how courageous, how faithful, Paul concludes by saying, in effect: “Since you have all these many good qualities, I ask you to have also this grace ‘which was in Christ Jesus, who being rich bécame r for our sakes.’” In other words, you are great folks; come on, now, and be generous also. ‘The preacher then proceed- ed to tell us what a grand thing it is to belong to the human race—how good people are, how courteous to each other, how brave uhder their sufferings, how hopeful in the face of an inscrutable Fate. He said that God created men and women because He wanted companions, and that He was pleased with His cre- ation. He made us all proud of our humanity, and sent us out more cheerful and better able to fight the week. I wondered why there are not more such sermons. Jesus did very little de- nouncing and hardly any "vlewmf with alarm.” He | came with a joyous message. “You are sons of God,” He fid.‘ “del}lnad for eternal piness.’ ’ l?eopl.e like th author would not publish his works in the United States. The most startling fact, however, about the condition of literature in our country, is that every author wishes to pyblish here, Every important. author, from whatever coun- try, is published here, and usually to the benefit of his prestige and his poc- ketbook. In no other land, no matter how cultured, is there so practical a to foreign writers. More- over, the American author finds in his " (Continued on Fourth Page.) Stanley Baldwin, on the one part, and the Lords Rothermere and Beaver- brook, on the other, the which noble lords would fain oust Mr. Baldwin from the leadership of the Conservative party. So far the honors seem to have gone to Mr. Baldwin. He is unwont- oused, and some of his expres- a recent study of the classic %lm leteers. In a by-election a few days ago the candidate indorsed Mr. Baldwin won an emphatic ry over the protege of their lordships, the issue really being whether Mr. Baldwin or their lordships should lead the party. Intra-party struggles are, of course, the most vicious of all, and this cam- palgn was one of the bitterest within memory. 2 George Watteau, & Negro whom, as a boy, David Livingstone rescued from slave traders in Africa and made personal servant, died the other day in_Kent at the age of 88. 5 Prel ary returns indicate in- crease of the population of India about 30,000,000 in the decade just ended. The gain was most notable in Madras. * K Kk x FRANCE.—Aristide Briand mfl! celebrated the twenty-fifth annh ry of his first induction into cabinet of- fice. He has held 25 portfolios and has been premier 11 times. He probably could the next President. It is an interesting speculation, in which all the gossips are joining, whether or not he will sacrifice ambition, excusable, however vain, to the sense of duty to not merely national but planetary causes, for as President he would scarcely be as helpful as in his pres- ent status to the causes of pacification and European federation. He has now held the foreign portfolio for six years without & break. R SPAIN.—The court-martial trial of 67 persons charged with participation in the recent Spanish uprisings ended on March 17. Six were acquitted, one was sentenced to death and 12 to life im- prisonment, and the rest received sen- tences ranging from 6 months to 20 years. Demonstrations, especially of students, in Madrid and Saragossa against the death sentence alarmed the cabinet, which tgot into telephone com- munication with the King, in London on a visit. The King ordered commu- tation to life imprisonment. ‘The return ¥ Madrid of Senor San- tiago Alba from his seven-year exile in Paris is causing a vast deal of specula~ tion. Rumor is bustling. He seems to vera | is distinctly an invention have been ju to Senor Alba as “a com- g‘rggosed erlmlnlluv’vho pilfered public funds,” but that he got across the border—just by inches. An extremely interesting trial is now under way—namely, of the most impor- tant signers of the revolutionary proc lamation of last December, inc Senor Zamora, who was procl “R;ovmonnl President of Spain.” t! ht that the nnta:'eu will be com: in view of the in Borthak fhese gentiemen his | ducer of raw chemicals or as general | he passed when wild life fur needs. We are, at the same time, becoming more critical of furs and we can oly be satisfled by the superior quality of those which we cultivate. It is possible that this industry may ex- pand witlr sufficlent rapidity to take up both the slack in man power and in oversupply of land as LIt serves the greatest attention and en- couragement. Agricultural Industries. In & somewhat similar way to that of the animal production section, the section on tural industries will attempt to solve the farmer's problem. This section will the posibili- ties of the utllization of farm products for purposes other than food. It.will discuss the farmer as a potential pro- a manue facturer. The latter of these possibili- ties holds the more interest. In the past the f has been able to utilize his time to advantage the year round. His Winter months were utilized in cutting down trees an pro himself with the year's fuel ‘The Spring of the year was made profit- able by the manufacture of maple sirup. ‘The gradual disappearance of trees on the farms has resi in & loss of these occupations and in their stead the farmer has to pay for his fuel, while at the same time he has time on his hands for which there is no market. ‘The necessity of looking after his cattle during the Winter, while in gen- eral & minor chore, is sufficient to make it une cal for to leave the farm during the Winter to seek factory employment in the towns, even thoug! could compete with the trained city worker, which may be difficult. If he could turn these Winter months into even a small amount of cash the farm problem would be solved. New Output Possible. ‘We cannot bring back the days when the farmer -was his own carpenter, blacksmith, butcher and so on, while his wife manufactured homespun to clothe the family and performed nu- merous other mant tasks. Perhaps, however, we can bring some new manufacturing to the rural districts. This (ht take the form of small community factories, which would be operated during the ‘Winter months only. # ‘The subject which will be discussed in the section on wve tion indicates, in anof ture 1is closely ‘to resemble dus 2 - of patent prof P America, vid t shown that 'g:v new plant “Ymd iced. muuyw /- acc natural causes. In this wa; m'idw ‘who uces a nfl’r is protected in same way as the man who produces a new ma- chine. He must show, however, that he had exercised invention in the pro- duction, g Sl Tl e (Cont on Seventh Page.) e h | States Navy could on new bles. oy ithmbhb% d tents in ¥ onbe years hence. The ot Hawaii Eniversity Adds Group to Fight Pest HONOLULU, Haiwall—A with the University of Hawail. Dr. A, C. Baker, principal entomol- ogist in charge of tropical, subtropical plant and insect investigation of the United States bureau, has just com- pleted an investigation here which leads him to believe the Mediterranean fruit fly can be subdued, if not eradicated. Accordingly, it has been decided to erect a building on the university cam- pus and make this the headquarters and laboratory for a paign of science land fruits that would add to the industries of this m Canada Uses U. S. Ships Instead of British Fleet OTTAWA, Ontario.—Naval parity be- tween Britain and United States has made a great difference to Canada, re- lared M. longer dependent upon fleet,” he said. “We have a danger of war with the United States. He helleved, however, that some of the strategists in British military circles were of the opinion that should war ever break out between United States Britain it might be wise I%M to declare her neutrality. United easily Ca- nadian ports sald Prof. , and by sending an army across the into Central Canada could divide the dominion in half. Fur Crop of Canada Depends Upon Women If the fur-goods depended on mere men it : [ % ; : i § : it e 7 o $18,044,726, of Wl ‘women accounted for : i 8. i Huge Amount of Seed Imported by America m-quvz’m pOniario—S0 ne 1 quality of turf produced bent grass seed, a comparatively new variety produced l:: Canada, Ml’ dur- ing the last five between 50,000 and 75,000 of have been to the United States sach h ™ seed ehereres the requireds