THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY SATURDAY, JANUARY 23, 1909. WAR IN THE AIR,

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3099, 23 January 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY SATURDAY, JANUARY 23, 1909. WAR IN THE AIR,

The prophets of Anglo-German war have reached the airship stage, a s was to be expected, and are speculatively discussing what may happen when man becomes a flying fighter. A German view of the probabilities was put last month by Government Councillor Rudolf Martin, a member of the official service, who delivered what the Berlin correspondent to the Liverpool "Daily Post" reasonably describes as "a remarkable lecture" to a large au.lience on a German airship invasion of England. A war between these two nations would inevitably lead, said Harr Martin, t.) the landing of a large army in England. That disputed question ha settles for himself straight away, it will be noticed, overcoming all the difficulties of transit that have bothered more CApert heads by assuming that aerial transports will convey the German soldiery safe into

the doomed country. The war that he pictures would last two years, a duration which would give Germany abundant time to build motor airships in such number that "she could not only destroy the British fleets in the Channel and the North Sea, but could also convoy an army through the air to England." The Wright Brothers' airship ;s the model he adopts for his air-cruiser and transport. Fifty thousand of these could be constructed for £50,000,000, and starting from Ostend or Calais they "could land 100,000 men on the Kentish coast within half an-hour." Evidently there would either have to be another war before this one or a remarkable European combination against Great Britain, for the scheme takes it for granted that Germany could use Belgium or France for a jumping-oif place. No doubt war in the air is among the practical possibilities of the future, and the indications suggest that it is any-

thing but a remote one. The Wrights, Count Zeppelin, Lebaudy, Farman, Santos-Dumont, and the British War Office, among many, have amply demonstrated that the "flying machine" which can be navigated is practicable, though in each case there remains to be discovered the little something needed, the missing link between successful experiment and permanent utility. Wilbur Wright recently claimed to have made an improvement in his maehina whereby reliability would be assured owing to a second propeller coming into action if the first dhould be disabled, but how far the device operates has yet to be ascertained. In the meantime, however, experiment has gone so far that many people regard the airship as having arrived. But in estimating the international effect of that development on war there is a fact to be remembered which Herr Martin conveniently ignored—namely, that the airship is no national monopoly. When Germany went to war with the Dane and the Austrians half a century ago she alone possessed the breech-loading gun which the locksmith Dreyse had invented. But no such exclusiveness attaches to the airship, the evolutijn of which is as cosmopolitan as the air itself. Santos-Dumont is a South American, the Wrights are from the United States, Farman is an Englishman, Lebaudy a Frenchman, Zeppelin a German. The national balance m ■ j this respect is rather against GerI many, indeed, for the Zeppelin air-

ship has' attached to it a balloon which, while it ensures buoyancy, is obviously a marK for the gunner and an Achilles' heel of the contrivance. Though it may be of some use in transport, the balloon will have to be eliminated from the airship, and already the machine that carries it has about the same relation to the aeroplane and simple as the sailing ship has to the steamer. Taking machine for machine, even on that basis, there has not heen much to choose between the French La Patrie, the British Nulli Secundus, and the Zeppelin ship. If each has had its disaster, each has also made its successful long flight. In whatever other respect Germany might lead the world, therefore, there is no reason at all for supposing that she will do so in the matter of aerial ships. The invtntion of these machines "has now rendered it impossible for England to emerge successfully from war with Germany," said Herr Martin. Not at all. It I is as likely as not that England would | have the best airships and render it impossible for Germany to embark on the war so many people are predicting and which it is most profoundly to be hoped will never happen.