Preparing for War

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 2, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 30.

Preparing for War

THE New York "World" and some other journals feel that the question of the future is air-ship and battle-ship. Military officers that witnessed the exhibition of dropping pseudo bombs on pseudo battle-ships believe that there is a factor to deal with that has not been dealt with before. Hiram Maxim declares that a thousand shots might go through an aeroplane without effect, without inflicting upon the pilot or the motor a disabling wound.

"The human spider in his web of bamboo and piano wire, moving at fifty miles an hour, flitting, swooping, rising, veering, constantly altering his course, is a small mark at a thousand feet of altitude. Shrapnel may destroy him, as Mr. Maxim says; but its range is limited, and the man in the aeroplane, while studying to cast his bolt, or after casting it, may rise to 3,000 feet and become almost lost to sight."

There is fearful risk in it, but there has never been any lack of men to take such chances, while a thousand aeroplanes may be built for the fraction of the cost of a super-Dreadnought.

"Give them a gray mist that veils the stars from below while the upper air is clear, and they may swoop so low that the dim bulk of the ship is an easy mark, while the sound of their coming will only approximately show their location."

And the next thing will be great appropriations for building fleets of aeroplanes, to be cast aside in a year or so for useless junk while more expensive ones will be on the tapis.

Just recently in addition to the new British budget, Mr. Lloyd-George made provision for a further increase of $27,500,000 in naval expenditures. He warns the country where it is needed, and he points out that in the last quarter of a century the naval estimates have risen from $65,000,000 in 1886 to $200,000,000 in 1910. That means national bankruptcy, and the great question is which nation will fall first. The New York "World" points out that "Great Britain's case is not different from that of the other great world powers. They have all been seized with the same craze for bloated armaments. The United States, in spite of its exceptionally advantageous position, has fallen a prey to the jingo madness." From $13,000,000 in 1886 naval

expenditures have mounted to $136,000,000, or increased tenfold in twenty-five years.

In the years 1907-1909 the seven nations, Great Britain, United States, Germany, France, Russia, Italy, and Japan, provided for the expenditure of $1,634,605,000 on their navies; Great Britain and the United States alone being responsible for more than half that enormous sum.

The same craze possesses the South American nations, Brazil building three big Dreadnoughts; Argentine two 20,000 ton battle-ships and four big cruisers; and now little Chile follows suit with a battle-ship larger than either of her neighbors possesses. "The World" truly says:

"A more ruinous policy or one more contrary to common sense was never conceived by civilized nations, and it is a thousand times ruinous in the light of Curtiss's experiments for 'The World.'"

Yet all this is but the fulfilment of prophecy. Read Joel 3: 9-12.