15 DECEMBER 1939, Page 15

I suggest that it is important that we should not

lose our sense of astonishment that such a thing as wireless tele- phony should exist at all. Only if we continuously regard it as a miracle shall we be able to estimate rightly its tremendous capacities for good and evil. Once we start taking this invention for granted we shall fall into the habit of classing it with other usual things. It is not a usual thing ; it is an innovation governed by wholly new conditions and requiring wholly different methods of criticism. It is, as Hitler himself asserts, a terrific weapon, "eine fiirchterliche Waffe." It is also a highly intricate electrical device. If we regard it merely as an alternative to the morning news- paper we shall find that we are not making an intelligent criticism of wireless programmes, but a vapid criticism of something else.,