HUMANISE RULES AND PRACTICES OF WAR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 141, 17 June 1938, Page 7

HUMANISE RULES AND PRACTICES OF WAR.

COMMONS QUESTION.

British Bombing in India

Criticised.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN'S ANSWER.

British Official Wireless. (Received 12 noon.) RUGBY, June Hi. In the House of Commons, Mr. Arthur Henderson (Lab., Kingswinford) asked the Prime Minister whether he was aware of an offer recently made by Mr. Cordell Hull on behalf of the United States Government to join other nations in seeking to humanise, by common agreement, the rules and practices of warfare; whether he would make a similar offer on behalf of the British Government, and whether, with such object in view, the Government would announce its willingness to forego the practice of police bombing on the North-West Frontier in India and elsewhere ?

Mr. Chamberlain replied that the Government was aware of Mr. Hull's observations, and it was always ready to co-operate in seeking agreement to humanise rules and practices of warfare.

Answering the last part of the question, he said that the Government would not allow the question of police bombing to stand in the way of reaching such an agreement. "I take the opportunity of emphasising that R.A.F. bombers are not employed on the NorthWest Frontier or elsewhere for the purpose of attacking civil population.

"In independent air operations bombing is never resorted to unless 24 hours' notice at least has been given to enable tribesmen and families to evacuate the area. Then, when bombers are used in close support of troops in action, a similar period of warning is always afforded before bombing operations begin, so as to enable non-combatants to evacuate the area of the operations.

"These safeguards are expressly laid down in the regulations governing the employment of the Air Force on the frontier, and they are never departed from in anv circumstances."

Mr. Henderson: Ts it not a fact that the official spokesmen in Japan and in Nationalist Spain and other countries are using this practice of police bombing in order to neutralise the moral effect of the protests the British Government has made regarding bombing of civilian populations both in China and Spain?

Mr. Chamberlain: Yes. That is so. That is the reason why I am taking pains to state exactly the conditions under which bombing may take place on the North-West Frontier.

Sir Percy Harris (Lib., Bethnal Green): Would it not be a splendid gesture to the world if the Prime Minister were to set an example by abandoning this practice?

Mr. Chamberlain: No, I do not think it would be a splendid gesture, but if it were found that this practice, which is in the main, I think, humane, were standing in the way of a general agreement to abolish bombing from the air we shoi'ld certainly be glad to abandon it.

Mr. fieorge Lansbury (Lab.. Bow and Bromley), who. over many years. h;\s criticised , police bombing by British forces, (juestioned the efficacy of condi tions described by Mr. Chamberlain, but the Prime Minister, in reply, indicated his view that attacks on the practice which Mr. Lansbury and another member had cited, must be by persons who were unaware of conditions and safeguards which the Government imposed on the use of the air arm for police purposes'.