Man is at last well on the way to mastery of the means of destroying himself utterly. All future international relations will be influenced for good or ill by the existence of the atomic bomb, whose discovery and use was revealed for the first time yesterday by the President of the United States. It is in its infancy, but it has begun with a destructiveness two thousand times greater than that of the largest bomb used against Germany. ╥Forthcoming improvements,╙ Mr. Stimson added to the President╒s statement, will ╥increase several-fold its present effectiveness.╙ In spite of the horror that must be kindled in all hearts by the very thought of such a weapon being turned against the human species, its use against the Japanese is entirely legitimate. It is illogical to judge the morality of bombing by the size of the bomb used. If the R.A.F. since the beginning of its campaign against Cologne to the end of the war has dropped on that city only the equivalent of one and a half atomic bombs, we have done enough to create a precedent for their use. Perhaps the figures for Cologne drive home the character of the new bomb most effectively, for our efforts against that city are still in our minds with the many raids and the great number of ╒planes and men used. Cologne had nearly 32,000 tons; the new bomb, a small thing itself, equals 20,000 tons. Germany was racing the Anglo-American scientists for the discovery of this fearful weapon; some have estimated that she would have been ready to use it during this month. No race was ever more worth winning, and the wisdom of Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt in acting on the advice of their scientific advisers and fostering this weapon╒s early promise, in spite of so many other claims on our war research, is something to be ever remembered with gratitude by this country and the United States, and, indeed, by the world.
Naturally the first thought in most people╒s minds will be of how this weapon, so perilous to the world should it fall into the wrong hands, may be controlled. President Truman said yesterday:
I have asked Congress to consider promptly the establishment of an appropriate commission to control the production and use of atomic power within the United States. I shall give further consideration and make a further recommendation to Congress as to how atomic power can become a powerful and forceful influence towards the maintenance of world peace.
At the moment one may assume, though one cannot be sure, that the secret of the bomb╒s production lies only in the hands of Britain and the United States. The two plants making it are in America. The forward march of science, however, can never be hemmed in by one or two national frontiers. We know that German science had advanced nearly as far in this direction as we had ourselves, and her scientists, many of them, are still alive. To show how nearly matched the leading nations are we have only to look back to an earlier discovery which must have powerfully stimulated the research leading to this bomb ╤ the discovery of how to disintegrate the atom artificially by electric discharge. This was made at Cambridge under Rutherford╒s guidance, but the Cambridge team was only just ahead of another in Germany and another in America. We have no guarantee that only Britain, America, and Germany were in the race for the atomic bomb and that some other nation╒s scientists will not in their turn pass the winning-post ╤ possibly without saying anything about it to the rest of the world.
The President stated that the technical processes of the bomb╒s production would not be divulged for the present, which may cause heart-burning in some quarters. One would feel more secure, however, if the essential ore used ╤ uranium ╤ were found only in certain limited and controllable territories. Unhappily the black pitchblende mineral from which uranium derives is scattered fairly widely through the world ╤ from Cornwall to Norway and from North America to Russia and the Belgian Congo. There are even some famous sources in Saxony and Austria. Clearly the future control of Germany will have to take the new potentialities of this mineral into account. By the numbers of men employed in the manufacture of these bombs in America one would say that their production could hardly ever be a small and easily hidden business. But we are only at the beginning and German revengefulness might well drive her scientists on to the discovery of new processes which it might be easier to hide. Clearly the ideal keeper of this weapon and of all means or producing it would be an international organisation charged with the maintenance of peace. On the other hand, it would be foolish to imagine ourselves yet particularly skilled in the administration of international possessions of this kind. What would be made of it, for instance, by the Security Council of the United Nations Organisation as at present devised? But if anything could knock sense into the national Governments it is surely the existence of this weapon. Lasting agreement between great States is difficult to gain and to keep, but it is a preferable alternative to the annihilation which the atomic bomb would bring to all slow starters in any future war.
