THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 1909. THE AIRSHIP ON THE FRONTIER.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3164, 15 April 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 1909. THE AIRSHIP ON THE FRONTIER.

Born to trouble, man can scarcely comiliin when such a new vexation threatens him as that whose beginnings are indicated in the recent cable reporting that France has imposed duties (of Customs, apparently), on German balloons flying over her frontier. Here we enter a region of trouble almost as limitless as the ether, where right-of-way is disputed. As far as laymen can presume to expound the law it seems that flying over property constitutes ' trespass, whether the Invaded air sits above a national border or. j, private estate. It may tutn %M. that the point is a new one ( M Is so often said in spite of the generations and centuries peoples have spent in trying to make, mend, and comprehend t'l.sip laws; but on the surface the cot*t= mittal of overhead trespass B g 6tilß clearly possible. Otherwi- „ '„ >„*,. ,j6, in iacr, property in land or ' . V \ A u . j . \ . iiouses coma be; destroyed once * >_i -a u»wi. " mo became practicable, ■ ... '„. , . .since the #rr-Mvelhng machine- . , . .< ~,,-».- ~ , ft , ,+ might, brcdd over the house .dO ©arth kcepettind make it ase- , less to hte 'or anyone else. But whatever the ie!srrigfi*ts of the question, crorcwiercial ante ' national necessity ftrresistibly defends that in view of I the Tffpidity -cf airship development horder-linefe "Shall go up into space indefinable. And where the difficulty ilies is "in enforcing those lines and j ; keeping them clear of either smug- j jgflers or raiders. The civil problem \ will require, of course, careful effort ' on the lines of setting a thief to catch a thief. The policemen who were expected to bring "scorching" cyclists to justice during the bike upheaval of a few years ago had to be equipped with bicycles, and on the same principle the revenue guards must be provided with swift aeroplanes and cruise about the "blue Heaven above us bent," to seize the 1 artful dodger with a cargo of highly ' dutiable goods in his flying machine. ' By the same token there must be ; flying scouts always poised over the border, reconnoitring, 'themselves only the sensitive antennae of a flying j garrison down below, ready to take . gunship and troopship and mount upward instantly, as the fireman takes I to his reels and engines and oiangs 1 down the street. What argumentative sftrife and prolonged difference of

opinion there will be over makingrules for regulating international aerial relations can be imagined by anyone who reflects that the laws of naval war are still incomplete and debatable in important respects even after the recent naval conference. It has been too gaily assumed that the aeroplane and the airship will eliminate national borders. The greater probability is that they will accentuate them by concentrating argument and civil and military forces over the frontier.