A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
HOW much unreality, I wonder, is there in the military and political discussions about a European army and the co- operation of the Germans and the possibility of the use of atomic or hydrogen bombs ? At a private conference of leading scientists held recently in London under-the auspices of the British Association and other bodies, statements which the layman could only regard as sensational regarding the possibilities of bacteriological warfare were made on authority that could not be lightly challenged. Since then I have heard a scientist of established and recognised reputation put .the thing more definitely. There are, he said, varigais toxins now known to bacteriologists capable of being produced on a sufficient scale to obliterate the populations of whole cities. Of one such—the statement, incredible though it may sound, was made soberly and specifically—seven ounces -would be enough to destroy the population of the world. A dozen cities in, say, the United States, could be depopulated in a night by a dozen men chartering aeroplanes and sprinkling wholesale death from them. It is pointed out, moreover, that in this form of warfare a small country can as easily be an aggressor as a great, for all that is needed is a competent biologist and a few competent distributors. Investigations in this field, it seems, were begun in Germany over fifteen years ago. What individual nations have achieved by this time no one knows. I repeat that I simply set down what I have heard from someone who could be charged neither with ignorance of his subject nor with scaremongering of any kind. No more potent argument for the abolition of war could well be conceived.
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