“NOT FOR GENTLEMEN"

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 319, 2 April 1928, Page 9

“NOT FOR GENTLEMEN"

SIR OLIVER LODGE ON WAR ENTHRALLING LECTURE By Cable.—Press Association. — Copyright. LONDON, Saturday, The well-known scientist, Sir Oliver Lodge, kept an audience of university men, representative of all England, almost spellbound in a lecture at Oxford. He declared that the human race is only in its infancy, and not yet properly civilised. “We know barely anything,” he said. “The fact is that we are just beginning to scrape the ground in our endeavour to advance, and we are making many mistakes. “Those who are depressed by the immediate outlook should realise that it is natural that the race in its infancy should behave badly by starting wars and trying to destroy each other.” Sir Oliver urged the cultivation of a spirit of international amity and quoted the following extract from a schoolboy’s essay on war: “In modern times war is, not to see the enemy, but to fire off rifles all day, and sometimes to get hit. Then in the evening you buy a newspaper to find out who has been beaten.” Dropping bombs on everybody and having submarines crawling about and sinking fishing boats, were no occupations for gentlemen, said Sir Oliver. —A. and N.Z.