ATOMIC CONTROL
Sta,—Is not The Spectator losing his sense of proportion? Some time ago Prometheus brought fire to the earth. You, Sir, in your ancestral cave suddenly became vulnerable to any vagabond who cared to smoke you out. It was before my time, but surely "Janus " must remember it, and possibly he made some " emotive noises." Prometheus did meet with some unpleasantness, but the world carried on. Later, the applica- tion of explosives to warfare must haVe seemed'catastrophic to the archers of Agincourt, and immoral to the baron with breaches blown in his castle wall. Electricity and thereto-dynamics added to the potential dangers of mankind. Bacteriology has never, I think, been fully exploited as a science of organised destruction. Now as men are learning to harness the atom, we are reaching another milestone ; as. hig as the introduction of gunpowder, not so big as the introduction of fire. Knowledge will 110w among the scientists, however much wisdom may linger among men
learned in the Humanities. Before the ink of the international agree- ment for the control of uranium is dry the element may well be out of date, and all its properties may be available in any well equipped physical laboratory. Is not the conclusion of the whole matter to be found in the control of the unruly wills and affections of sinful men? Meantime, I suppose we must botch with restrictions of mining rights here, and of laboratory experiments there. But it is only botching.—Yours, &c., [The Lilienthal Report, which has been frequently commended in The Spectator, is concerned with the problem the writer mentions the human control of scientific enquiry. And it is no botch.—En., The Spectator.]
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