THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1907. WAR BALLOONS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8536, 17 September 1907, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1907. WAR BALLOONS.

The three greatest nations in Europe, England, France, and Germany, have now each an aerial warship which has successfully demonstrated its ability to perform evolutions in the air at the will of its controller. It fan no longer be doubted that in the next war this new weapon will play an important part. It is even possible that it may revolutionise the art of warfare as completely as did the discovery of gunpowder. Already it has given rise in Germany to an agitation for the recognition of atmospheric frontiers. It is pointed out that French airships could sail over Germany and easily photograph all the German fortifications, and vice versa. Considerations of national defence, therefore, render it essential to regulate aerial navigation by legislation. As a first step the existing frontiers mutt be extended upwards into the air. pattitioning the atmosphere according to the countries concerned. One military writer, Colonel Wagner, urges that foreign airships should be prohibited from sailing in Germany's atmopsheric zone even in time of peace, and demands that a law should be passed enabling German military authorities to destroy by artillery or otherwise all foreign airships perceived in Germany's atmospheric zone. He also proposes that a State monopoly of aerial navigation shftuld be created as in telegraphy and other things by which vital national interests are involved. The leading Con-

servative daily, the Deutsche Tages Zeitung, points out that in the near future airships will become extremely valuable in warfare, and especially valuable to Germany in a war against Great Britain. It is pointed out that a German aerial fleet capable of dropping explosives on British Dreadnoughts would go a long way towards remedying Germany's naval inferiority to Great Britain. The Tages Zeitung urges that the Reichstag should promptly vote necessary funds for the construction of more airships.