THE NOBEl PRIZES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 161, 14 December 1914, Page 4

THE NOBEI PRIZES.

The suggestion of the Scandinavian Press that this year's Nobel prizes should be given, to. the. refugees, will, no doubt, be unanimously endorsed, not only in Britain, but in most neutral countries where the sufferings of littla Belgium have touched the hearts of the people. These prizes, each worth several thousand pounds, are awarded annually without distinction of nationality. The first three' are for eminence in physical science, in chemistry and medical science or physiology. The fourth is for the most remarkable literary effort of the year, and the fifth is donated to the person or society that renders "the greatest service to the cause of international brotherhood in the suppression and reduction of standing armies, or in the establishment and furtherance of peace congresses." During this year, at least it will be impossible to allot the prizes on anything like an equitable basis, andj further, in this time of strife it would bo a difficult matter to find a man or society, unless the Kaiser, that has furthered the cause of international brotherhood and succeeded in the suppression and reduction of standing armies. We mention the Kaiser because he has done more than any man living to bring the peoples of Britain, France, Belgium, Russia and Japan closer together and to a mutual understanding of one another, thus forging a bond of true internationalism. The present war is a strange commentary on the life of Alfred Bernhard Nobel, the donor of theso prizes, and the man who did more than anyone else to perfect the high explosives used by the armies of Europe to-day (writes the Christch'urch Star). The son of. a torpedo maker himself, young Nobel devoted himself to the study of explosives, and especially to the manufacture of the deadly nitro-glycerine. He next experimented with gun-cotton and succeeded in producing even a more terrible explosive. In 1867, he patented dynamite, and this invention soon led to the invention of cordite, though Nobel is no j longer credited with inventing this *ub- { stitute for gunpowder. A lawsuit with the. British Government over the manuj facturo of cordite was lost by Nobel, I it being shown that the constituents of I the cordite manufactured in Britain were somewhat different to those em- | ployed by the Swedish chemist. During 1 his life-time, Nobel amassed a huge for- ' tunc, and when he died at San Renio in 1806, he left the bulk of it in trust to endow those famous awards known as the Nobel prizes. But the man who had given his whole life to adding fresh terrors to the armaments of the nations, to the perfecting of this modern Frankenstein, on leaving this world donates a liberal prize annually to the man or to the society who is the most instrumental in securing the permanence of international peace. Certainly a remarkable paradox, this of devoting money won from the madness of competitive armaments to the cause of peace. If Nobel were, alive to-day, he would boo the shell-riddled cathedrals and chateaus of France and in the oceans of blood spilt in Belgium testimony to the thoroughness of his work, and to the subtlety of the brain that made Armageddon possible What a contradiction there is between the work and the ideals of the man? Throughout his life, Nobel used his great knowledge of chemistry in the perfecting and inventing of high explosives, thus satisfying the perverted world hunger for armaments. In this he was both the creature and tho director of his time. The creature in so far as he pandered to the base appetite for war; the director by virtue of the fact that he manufactured the quick death that was to make one nation the conqueror of the other, and ultimately to change the face of continents and tho map of the world. The invention of ! gunpowder affected civilisation as profoundly as the invention of printing. The former stood for the destruction, the latter for the conservation of society/ 1 The struggle is not over yet, and the 1 researches of men like Nobel go to show [ that man's potentialities for. destruction are almost unlimited; that in fact they 1 are as great as his constructive and cons' servativo powers. But Nobel tho man : was greater than Nobel tlifl inventor. By what shall ho live in history! By the force that scatters death over a peaceful land, or by his message to mankind—directed by a greater power than mere physical expansion—of which the Nobel prizes aro the tangiblo expression. J