The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORTED THE EGMONT SETTLER THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 1916. AERIAL WARFARE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXX, Issue 15, 20 April 1916, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post WITH WHICH IS INCORPORTED THE EGMONT SETTLER THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 1916. AERIAL WARFARE.

For some time past now there has boon a growing 1 demand in England for retaliation against the Germans

for the callous brutality of the airship raids, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is being supported in his strong, advo-

cacy of reprisals by many notable men, including Lord-Rosebery. “We have too long displayed,” laird Rosebery writes, “a passive and excessive patience. To scatter bombs over a

countryside, to destroy* indiscriminately the mansion and cottage, the church and school, to—murder unoffending civilians, women and children and sucklings in their beds—these arc the noble aspirations of Prussian chivalry, acclaimed by their nation as deeds of merit and daring. Lot them realise this triumph. Let us bring it borne directly to their hearths and homes. Lot us mote out their moa* sure to themselves. Nothing else will make them realise their glories, and the blood of any who may suffer will rest on their Government, not on ours.” That it should be possible to inflict.very great injury on enemy towns is undoubted, for Mr Balfour in a quite recent speech stated that “the expansion of the flying service since the war began has been phenomenal. It has been perfectly prodigious. The material for that expansion had to be provided: and we are still behindhand. It is not that we have neglected to order the things. It is hot that we have (icon oblivious to the fact that such and such a thing whs required. It is that we cannot get the things. But the orders are coming in. The whole of this Hying

business is new in practice. How

could any Government have foreseen ? All the manufacturing possibilities of this country, of allied countries, and of America are used to the utmost bv

tin’s country in getting the necessary air material. The efforts have been

unceasing. They have not nearly reached their fruition.” That Britain was very far behind Germany in aerial equipment at the beginning of the war is quite true, but a tremendous lot of leeway lias been made up. One of the principal troubles which has had to be overcome appears to have been that the military and naval

authorities had not been assisting each

other as effectively as the country , had a right to expect in the matter 1

of defence against aerial raids and the providing of airships for our own use. So far as can be ascertained, matters in this connection are on a better footing now, and wo may, before long, learn that something is really doing in the air from our side.