MR. CHARLES READE ON THE ART OF WAR.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5632, 18 April 1879, Page 3

MR. CHARLES READE ON THE ART OF WAR.

The following letter is published in the Daily Telegi aph . ; •. “ Sir, —It is not necessary,to he out-witted by Zulus. People that go to war. should immediately mb up their wits. If they have to encounter savages superior in numbers and knowledge of the ground, and armed no longer with stone arrows and bqne spears, but guns and rifles, the very first question they should ask themselves is this—Does all our superior science furnish us with no engine of war to turn the scale ? Now, we do possess an engine of modern warfare that ought to have been in the unlucky camp, since no German nor French- army would have invaded [ even a strange and,wooded, country, without it—l mean a balloon—a la corded A,very!small one would have raised a man 1000 feet, and shown him in a moment the shallow secrets of Zulu strategy., Lateral ambuscades though [ in jungle are no ambuscades to a scout: looking' down vertically with a powerful; binocular and sweeping -thirty miles at a glance, j The nation, therefore, .will feel obliged. to the ' War Office if it will send out, not a great many; more soldiers to be fenbeked on the head, but •a few more soldiers, more ammunition, more; balloons, more gasometers, more binoculars—l more brains. .Paris, for her amusement, raised, twenty-five people in a balloon 2400 ft. several times daily. Cannot England raise one[ drummer boy or one gallant little officer ‘lngentes animds augusto peotore versans’; —l2ooft., to protect .her chivalry from silly: slaughter? No doubt it is much harder to; generate gas in a damp than'in a city, hut it[ has been done in canips, and tberefore.it can, be done again, and ought to be done, though a' jury of inventors should have to be convoked.When civilised nations meet in battle,; glory may be gained though life is' lost; but those who send our heroes to fight with ’ savaged should attack defensively and cudgel their brains a bit, grudging so base an enemy the life of a single British soldier, and the tears of those who mourn him.—l am, &c., CHA3. Reads.”. - - ' . - .