The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-08-17
By ARTHUR PONsONBY, III. P. Copyright, U. $. A, United News) PubIished sby Arrangement With
 "RevnOIds, NeNvspnper)


 "ReynOIds" Newspaper)
 LONDON August 16.-War seares are bound to arise from time to time, considering the condition Europe is ill., and considering also the very dis tinct hope of improvement. People may find themselves forced by the inflammation of public opinion 70 make up their minds on the issue of peace or war with this nation or that nation It is just as well. therefore, that everyone should realize exactly what war means,
 The next war will resemble as liJ- tie the last war as the last war re sembled any previous war There will be more difference between the next war and any other war thaa there was between the war when gunpoWder was first invented ana the war before it when there was hand-to-hand fighting.
 The new element. the new form of armament. which ts. to upset all out calculations. is the air service,
 o Q o
 Aircraft ''Pragress."
 As an offensive weapon, aircraft is rapidly reaching degree of de- structiveness which reduces the oa.- tleshfp. the tank. the long-range gun and even the submarine, to toys. At the same time it must be remem Q bered that airplanes are compara- tfvelv cheap, and can be rapidly con structed. How will they operate!
 In future, instead or aiming at scme particular center. zones will be r5ar;5ed. ont for general demolition over the first zone hundred squad, rons will operate; 1.200 machines Will he able to make three raids in 2l hours, carving and dropping SVV tons ot explosives and gases. m three days 2.7O0 tons of bombs will m n. other souadrons will be free to fly over to further and morN distant zones.
 No City Would Be SRfe
 No city. village. building, or rail way will be safe. The rain or eN- plGsives. well aimed and highly des- tructiVe will spare nothing aDONe ground while the gas bombs VII! cover the whole district with pail of heavy gas, which will make lire above ground impossible for days Railway lines will be torn up, so that escape for the inhabitants who art not crushed under the ruins Of theH houses will be impossible
 Driven under ground If they can find such a refuge, the panic stricken population will remain covering Tn terror, lest on emerging they may succumb to poison gas, or again become the target for another shower of bombs.
 This is no fantastic picture. Tc carry out this work of universal an initiation, is perfectly easy task for modern aircraft and it Will re- uuire the construction of vast bomb proof shelters if any appreciable number of people are to be saved from a hideous death. The civil popu- lation. including women and children who were the last to be reached in former wa s, will be the first defeuseless as they will be, to be sacrificed in the warfare of the futre No Time For Defense.
 There will no time for making de- lenses or devising protection. de- claration of war will no longer be followed by a few days of delay when troops mass and battleship7 take up their strategic psitions Within a couple of hours of the de- claration, this dabolical rain from the sky will begin.
 The people will be as capable of resistance as ants in an antheap when boiling water is poured over them. Terror-strieken they will dive under the ground wherever they can. and where they cannot they will be ~aspSyXiated or blown to atoms. The one consolation which will be of fered to them, if consolation 1t be, will be that the nation which has been selected as their enemy is be- ing treated in the same way.
 This is the point which Christian civilization has reached in the twen- tieth century These are the plans which are eng worked out and perfected in tne war offices of the powers of the western world. This is the new method which man in his wisdom has devised with a view to settling international disputes.