THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, JUNE 29, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8171, 29 June 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, JUNE 29, 1906.

A brief but striking article appears in the National Review from the pen of Major P. B. Baden-Powell, who calls preliminary attention to the faot that three notable steps have been already achieved in aerial navigation. The first is th» nunlifting kite, which has snooeeded in raising a man, without any gas baa, to an altitude of 3,000 feet, whioh is practically above the range of rifle fire. The second is that M. Lebaudy has been equally successful in constructing a practicable turship, or propelled balloon; acd the third is that a gliding machine has been built by the brothers Winter in America, which can be driven along by a motor and propellers so as to maintain itself for upwards of Jaalf-an-hour in the air. Looking at what has been actually accomplished in this direction, Major Baden-Poweli

regards a veritable flying machine as one of the certain achievements of ttie near future. Motor oars, he reminds us, were nardiy more than dreamt of 20 years ago; were looked upon as curiosities 10 years ago; and have already become a feature of our daily life, liut these promise to be superseded by flying machines moving through the unimpeded and practically frictionleas air at a speed of 100 miles an hour; and the momentous consequences of an invention of this kind will be incalculable. "Suoh a machine," observes the Mnjor, "will truly introduce novelties in war, to say nothing of peaoe. When a Frenchman can dash across to our shores in 10 minutes, and be over London within an hour, it will be high time to consider wherein our insularity consists, and of what good to us is the silver streak and our indomitable navy! Tariff reform is doomed when hundreds of aerial vessels are continually passing at all heights and in all directions. National frontiers and private boundaries will alike be obliterated." But there is a silver lining to every cloud; and the flying machine may] ring the knell of war, for this will have become so appalling by the vast destruction of human lives and property, which will result from the employment of chemical agencies dropped over great cities, military arsenals, dookyarda, and fleets, from these "coursers of the air," that the outraged conscience of oivilised mankind will insist upon its abolition.