The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORTED THE EGMONT SETTLER TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 1916. WAR IN THE AIR.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXX, Issue 13, 18 April 1916, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORTED THE EGMONT SETTLER TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 1916. WAR IN THE AIR.

The part that war in the air is playing in the present conflict, thougn by no means inconsiderable, lias not yet ( shown the great military advantages i claimed for it, though certainly there are those who, like Mr Billings, M.P., predict great things in the near lutnre.. A writer in the Sydney Daily Telegraph deals with aerial war- > j fare in a recent issue of that journal, and in so doing, says that while military 7 history shows that improved weapons assure the victory of the nation - that possesses them over an enemy equipped with less potent implements of destruction and defence, there is always a danger of mistaking a novelty for an improvement. What is new is not necessarily superior to what is old. The relative merits of each have to bo tested by comparisons made in actual practice. Hence, though the inventors of bronze weapons annihilated those who clung to their stone axes, and though the artificers in iron put an end to the users of copper alloyed with tin, the superiority of the victors in eacn case was ; due to the demonstrated superiority j of their weapons. German writers j have frequently boasted that German , genius, as exemplified by the Zeppej lin and the submarine, has invented .» new' weapons which will destroy the I British supremacy of the sea founded lon big battleships. The chief defect •I in the argument is, the Telegraph writer goes on to point out, that it assumes what it seeks to prove—namely, that the new German instrument.of destruction are more efficacious ij than the existing British instruments. | Disregarding for the the whole submarine question—which is a very ■ ( big one. both politically ami navallv—--1 il may be pointed out that Germany did not introduce the Zeppelin because i it was sunerior for war purposes to | the battleship, but because it was I different from it. Germany "’as uu-j . able to compete against Britain in J 1 battleships, and was therefore compelled to exoeriivionf a different j sort of instrument altogether, rfm-ee tlie Zeppelin. But the analogy of the bronze-eye against the ■■toncaxe warrior, vh’efi "h f’ l " j German arguments and exonerations. , has no real bearing upon the issue.. i

The bronze-axe warrior did not invent his new weapon because he was inferior inability to construct and use a stone-axe. He perfected Ins View weapon because he found in practice that by its use lie could defeat the wielder of the older weapon. The ■German Zeppelin lias achieved no ot military value up to the '.present, although it has'caused many grievious fatalities and injuries among the civilian population of Great Britain. It may, of course, be argued with much force that Britain ought to build Zeppelins to light Zeppelins and thereby to protect -her civilian population. That contention may bo accepted by a reasoner who still maintains the view that the ability of Zeppelins to destiny battleships has been disproved up to tlie present, and that, therefore, it is upon her battleships that Britain must rely for the security of the nation. Aerial warfare m fact, is at present no more than an adjunct to naval warfare. It is not a substitute for it, even when supported by submarine activity.