HORRORS OF WAR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 June 1938, Page 7

HORRORS OF WAR

MR CHAMBERLAIN ON AERIAL BOMBING No Accepted International Code RULES THAT SHOULD BE ENFORCED By Telegraph.—Press Association. —Copyright. (Received This Day 11.45 a.m.) RUGBY, June 21. Speaking in the foreign affairs debate after Mr Noel Baker, who opened for the Opposition, the Prime Minister (the Rt Hon Neville Chamberlain) said he thought there would be general agreement with Mr Baker’s remarks upon the horrors of modern war and about the practice of bombing from the air. The fact was that there was at present no code of international law respecting aerial warfare generally accepted. The Premier reminded the House that the Government was engaged in a careful survey of the whole position, with a view to formulating a practical scheme which could be put before other countries for acceptance or modification, with a view to reaching some international understanding on the rules of aerial warfare. There were at any rate three rules, or three principles, of international law which he thought they might say were applicable to aerial warfare as fully as they were to war on land or sea. Firstly, it was against international law to bomb civilians as such and make deliberate attacks on civilian populations. That undoubtedly was a violation of international,law. Secondly, targets must be legitimate military objectives and be capable of identification. Thirdly, reasonable care must be taken in attacking these objectives. Those three general rules they could all accept and the Government did accept them, but obviously, when they came to practise them, there were considerable difficulties.