The Southland Times. SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 1944. Public Opinion and Bombing

Southland Times, Issue 25350, 29 April 1944, Page 4

The Southland Times. SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 1944. Public Opinion and Bombing

THE CASE against “obliteration” bombing is at present being pressed in Britain by a committee whose members include some eminent persons. It was reported yesterday that one of them, the Bishop of Birmingham, had described bombing as “a horrible development of warfare which ought to be an outrage to the Christian conscience.” The committee has been mentioned in the House of Commons, where its activities were dismissed by the Home Secretary “as having a negligible influence on public opinion.” These minority, movements are typical of the widespread interest in ideas, ana of the large tolerance given to 1 their discussion, in the educated British community. At every stage of the war they have been ' provoked, to make their protests, against official policies and methods. Even in 1940, when the invasion of Britain appeared to be imminent, and when some excuse existed for rough precautions, individuals and groups protested vigorously against the wholesale internment of German exiles. More. recently, voices have been raised against the bombing of the monastery at Cassino. This subject became controversial. Far more attention was given to it than could have been assumed from references in the cable messages. Writers to liberal and leftwing journals tried to decide whether it was better to save hundreds of lives oi’ to save an irreplaceable cultural monument. Even in the columns of The Times the apparent danger of Rome was deplored and justified. Some of the arguments put forward in London journals came from cultivated men whose reverence for ancient and beautiful buildings might be hard to understand in a country like New Zealand, where history has left no monuments, and where the arts are still struggling to be bom. The conflict between necessity and conscience.has been very real among the intellectuals. It has taken place with an almost complete freedom of expression. But while the intellectuals were spinning out .their arguments the subject was not being ignored by the common people. A survey of public reactions to the raids on Germany was conducted recently by a mass-observation expert for The New Statesman and Nation. Two extremes were noted in the following comments. “I feel terrible sometimes when I think what those poor women and kids must be going through, said a middle-aged worker. A working man’s wife spoke more briefly: “Lovely—smash ’em up.” It has been noticed, however, that the demand for reprisals ceased to be active or widespread soon after the end. of the Blitz in 1941. The raids are being regarded today from a strictly realistic point of view.

Principle and Necessity

Six out of 10 people in London give them an unqualified approval; two admit their necessity, but are uneasy about their effects on the civil population; one feels that they are too terrible to be approved;. and one is unable to give an opinion. “A gloating or vengeful attitude is rare even among those who give unqualified assent.” These people have experienced bombing. The question, for them, is not merely academic, as it must be in this country; it is something they can examine with the assistance of their own vivid memories. They do not like bombing; but they see it as the only means of shortening the war. No matter how deeply they may sympathize with German civilians, they cannot forget the husbands, sons and brothers who will take part', in the invasion of Europe, and whose chances of survival are being improved by every new blow at a nerve centre of the enemy’s war machine. Moreover, they are, tired and a little hungry; they have had a long and hard war; and they are not in the mood to discuss the finer points of morality. The people as a whole would not understand those who plead for the preservation of cultural treasures. They are concerned today with the basic human values—food, shelter, and the right to be alive now that a green spring is spreading over the countryside. Many of their soldiers are ehjoying an English spring for the last time. At the climax of a long war the necessity of sacrifice remains inescapable; but thoughts are ranging ahead to a future in which there will be no bombs. To ask these people to put aside their most powerful weapons, and to accept instead an endless and bloody struggle which would be most likely to become a stalemate, is to ask the impossible. The Bishop of Birmingham did not go far enough when he said that bombing “ought to be an outrage to the Christian conscience.” It is war itself which constitutes the outrage. Bombing is merely the weapon which carries devastation more quickly than ever before to the cities and homes of belligerents. Further, the side which abandons bombing must also abandon victory. And only through victory is it possible to hope for a world in which the nations can be free to work and plan for the prevention of war in the future. Yet there is something to be said in favour of the Bombing Restriction Committee. Its members may be misguided, unrealistic, or even ignorant of war as it must be faced on the battlefield. But they are speaking for the conscience of mankind. The dilemma of %e modern world has seldom been more clearly presented than in the clash between principle and necessity which disturbs those who, having acknowledged the righteousness of the Allied cause, are shrinking from the methods which alone can win the war quickly enough to save the peace.