ROADS OR BOMBS ?
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] was interested in your suggestion in The Spectator for June 17th that we might build roads on the N.W. frontier as an effective means of bringing peace to that troubled region. The Japanese have already anticipated us. For after the initial and inevitable fighting with the head-hunter tribes of the island of Formosa they slung a net-work of well-made " police paths " all over the mountain territory where these tribes live. The paths themselves constitute no small feat of engineering and serve with the telephone to link up the police posts over this area. In many cases they cross passes over 0,000 feet in height. Indeed I enjoyed an open-air bath at one post above the I 1,000 feet mark ! The result has been conspicuously successful. For though outbreaks do occur from time to time (the last was in 1931, I believe), yet the relation between policeman and savage is increasingly becoming that of between parent and child.
Only one small area in 1931 was still un-tamed, and there the Japanese were building a path !
For a fuller description perhaps I may be allowed to refer to my book Scrambles in Japan and Formosa (Arnold), once reviewed in your columns.—Yours faithfully,
Previous page
