Genre:

Essay

Subjects:

Military Technology, War, Internationalism

    Reflects on the decision of the St Petersburg Conference, held to determine rules of warfare, to stop using rifle-shells. Considers the argument that the more 'murderous' weapons become, 'the sooner will war become so terrible that nations will shrink from incurring its horrors'. Asserts that the Peace Society is consequently encouraging the development of inventions of war, and suggests that this organisation will also promote a joint-stock company for making bombs capable of scattering poisonous snake venom. Notes that 'all projectiles hurt dreadfully when they smash bones or inflict lacerated wounds' and that the decision of the St Petersburg Conference to ban shells under one pound in weight would lead to 'sovereigns and peoples' thinking that projectiles 'are not so much less horrid as to be allowable'. Concludes by asking whether it is absurd to think that mankind will consider armed conflict to be 'an obsolete atrocity'.