"Which leads one to ask where all this modern invention will end? As applied to engines of destruction, it has provided means whereby men may be massacred by the hundred; for modern guns and modern shell are capable of terrible destruction at distances never dreamed of but fifty years ago. Ships may be caused to founder not only by the direct gunfire of an opponent, or by torpedoes launched at her, but by the aid of submarines, the presence of which may not have been suspected. Add the modern rifle, with its high-muzzle velocity and consequent flat trajectory, and its vastly increased range, whereby troops may be slain at a distance of two miles from the firing point. Then, with wireless apparatus to enable one general to co-ordinate his movements with another, aeroplanes to spy out the land and report the presence of unsuspected troops, and lastly, airships such as this one, capable of almost anything--why, sir, where are we coming to?" "Were I to say to a stage where nations agreed to limit armaments, to clear up their disputes by means of arbitration, and merely to keep sufficient fighting forces to collectively police the world, I should be considered a madman," said Joe deliberately. "But that era is coming. Not perhaps in our time, Major; but come it must, and not precisely for the reason that modern invention has made war more terrible than ever. No, sir. It is because ships such as this one, ships which plough the sea also, and better means of intercommunication amongst the nations, are making friends of the working people. Wars are made too often in the Cabinets and Foreign Offices of the nations. Then men are dragged from their homes to fight men with whom they would otherwise willingly have been friendly. They are sacrificed for an idea perhaps, for a petty dispute which the people will in future leave with every confidence to such tribunals as I have mentioned. Then, sir, there will be no war, save against savages who stand in the way of civilization."