The Manawatu Daily Times The Problem of Air Forces

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 7067, 28 January 1933, Page 6

The Manawatu Daily Times The Problem of Air Forces

There is a general and vivid recognition of the fact that, whatever is done or left undone in the matter of disarmament, it is impossible to tolerate the menace of aerial warfare. For while other weapons can be held to be military, and employable chiefly, if not altogether, against opposing forces, the function of the airplane in war is, primarily, anti-civilian. By it the horrors of war are vastly multiplied. The proudest works of civilisation can, it is believed, be obliterated in a night ; and the first intimation of war may- be the destruction of cities and their inhabitants.

Nor, in tackling this problem, can any satisfactory distinction be drawn between military aviation and civil aviation. The passenger airplane can, it has been shown, speedily be converted into the bombing airplane. Quite clearly, tho magnificent progress that has been made by man in the conquest of the air must be maintained. Nevertheless, we are bound to consider ways and means of preventing the misuse of aerial machines. It is proposed that there shall be some form of international control. But nobody has yet framed a sound scheme which would commend itself. No one is willing to assign limits to the development of aviation, and no one is willing to allow it to be hampered by regulations whose efficacy is doubtful. A certain amount of national rivalry in the air is one of the conditions of progress, and it is not easy to determine by what method, if any, private enterprise shall be subjected to foreign control. The proper course is undoubtedly to eliminate warfare altogether, and to establish permanent peace. But that is the ultimate goal, and in the meantime steps must be taken to stop mankind from becoming the victim of its own inventiveness. Certainly there should be, as the French have proposed, the total prohibition of aerial bombardments ; but each nation has built a fleet of bombing machines, and while they exist—or even while commercial machines which can be quickly transformed exist—the outbreak of Avar might provoke their employment. 'What is needed is the utter and unequivocal ostracising of aerial warfare and those who resort to it. Let it be firmly laid down that whoever is guilty of bombardment from the air is an outlaw and a traitor to the civilisation to which we all belong ; and the intensity of such universal disapprobation will unquestionably act as a deterrent. It is not yet sufficiently appreciated that the moral weapon is one which will, in the end, obliterate material weapons..