WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 127, 27 February 1928, Page 8

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(Bv

T.D.H.)

“Dawn,” one gathers, is to be banned because nobody wants daylight on the war. A man is setting out to sail a boat single-handed from Australia to New Zealand. If he doesn’t get here it seems that it will be entirely his own affair, but if he started to fly an aeroplane across it would be everybody’s business to save his valuable life by prohibitions, proclamations, and the Lord knows what. Now that the film about Nurse Cavell is banned because nobody must hurt the feelings of the German brother, it would appear that the time will soon be opportune to begin the revision of State papers and official histories of the late regrettable war. The first fact to be emphasised about the war is, of course, that whoever’s fault it was it certainly wasn’t Germany’s. The old lie that’Germany violated the neutrality of Belgium will also have to be exposed for the hollow fraud it is. The truth of the matter, as Herr von Beth-niann-Hollweg very properly pointed out at the time, is that the Belgian neutrality treaty was merely a scrap of paper, and testimony by leading statesmen who have personally examined the document might be adduced to remove nnv lingering doubt as to this indubitable fact. • « • A revised edition of the report of Lord Bryce’s Commission on the alleged German outrages in Belgium is a work that will have to be taken in hand. This report with its gruesome illustrations must be very prejudicial to AngloGerman amity in its present form, and we have very little doubt it will be found that the unfortunate occurrences were either purely accidental, or else a proper and necessary step in accordance with the recognised usages of warfare. If this latter solution is found the most satisfactory in promoting friendships with our late enemies, a series of statements bv leading British generals that thev themselves would do exactlv the same things in similar circumstances might do a lot to promote British popularity in Berlin, now that it is so universally recognised the creation of an atmosphere of goodwill is vastly more important than sticking to fine points of accuracy about torpedoed hospital ships and other little matters of that sort. Tt must not be forgotten that although Germany may not have tried all the alleged war criminals, she most certainly did try a selection of them, and the judges found the charges too trifling to wade through the interminable list presented by the Allied busvbodies. ■* * « Since writing the above wc find that the British Government has already withdrawn the Belgian neutrality treaty from conspicuous public view. The State Record Office in London, recently issued a series of postcard facsimiles of famous and curious documents under its charge, and atrang the number was one of the Belgian Neutrality Treaty of 1838. The'Foreign Office immediately asked that this offensive postcard should be wi'hdrawn in -order to preserve that delicate plant, the Locarno, spirit, and the treaty accordingly vanished from view in the postcard series. Britain is not alone in burying facts tn order to promote harmony. The following message from New York, for example, appeared in the “Manchester Guardian” of January 7“The film, ‘King of Kings,’ which tells the story of the life of Christ, has been modified so that the Jews are no longer held responsible for the Crucifixion. A special prologue is being prepared by the producer, Cecil de Mille, and numerous alterations made so that the film now lays all the blame on Caiaphas, ‘the corrupt high priest and appointee of the Roman Empire, and other hirelings of that despotism which held Judea in thrall.’ The alteration was made as the result of a widespread and persistent protest of American Jews and through the intervention of Will Hayes, the 'movie Tsar.’ ” If an Italian edition of this film is prepared we have no doubt that Signor Mussolini will see to it that a further emendation is effected, making it equally clear that the Romans were not responsible for the Crucifixion either. Is mankind to flv without burning petrol to do it? A Russian genius, Captain Victor Dibovsky, who got £5500 from the British Government for an invention of synchronising gear for firing through the propeller of an aeroplane, says he has made a machine by which men can fly as birds fly. So far Captain Dibovsky’s machine exists only on paper and in model form. It will be 12 feet long, and will have a span of 25 feet, will weigh only 1501 b., will attain a speed of 15 to 25 mites an hour in calm weather, and will soar to 3000 feet. The principle of flight, the public is assured, will be the same as m the albatross. The airman will assume a horizontal position in flight, the organs of steering will be concentrated in his hands, and'the organs of flapping in his legs. The machine will have on its surface, we are told, “a certain area of depression which will give automatic propulsion power.” Such an area of depression in the body of the albatross, the inventor adds, makes it able to move forward against strong currents of air. Captain Dibovksy is not the first person to design a machine to enable a man to flv as a bird flies. King Minos, of Crete in some immensely remote period was busv on the problem, and seems to have met with about as much success as the innumerable persons who in all ages and all countries have since attempted to gird on wings and fly. One aeronautical authority flatly declares the thing impossible. A man, he says, can produce bv pedalling ,or otherwise, about one-tenth of a horse-power m bursts of power, but not continuously. Supposing the man weighs 1501 b. and the machine nothing, he would have to raise in flight 15001 b. per horse-power. The best an aeroplane has yet succeeded in doing is to lift up 501 b. per horsepower. Therefore, it is asserted, no man can ever fly by his own power. Unfortunately this aeronautical authority does not tell us how much horsepower an albatross produces and how much it weighs. We have the remotest idea on this point ourselves, and it might be alarming to natural history students if it were also found to Ire mechanically impossible for an albatross to fly, and all the matter in the text hooks on this point had to be revised. There seems to be a certain amount of mvsterv about how the albatross does it, and it may be that Nature and Captain Dibovsky have approached the problem on some other basis than lbs. per horse-power. Nature, unfortunately, has merely produced the albatross and has inadvertently issued no explanation of it, and Captain Dibovsky, equally unfortunately, has merely explained his human albatross attachment and has not made it.

Girl (reading newspaper) : “Oh! Grandpapa, isn’t this murder case thrilling?” Grandpapa: “Ah, tnv dear, murders are not what they used to be in my, young days.”