One last word may be said on the chief moral
of air raids, a moral which is much more important than the question of " reprisals." The raids hitherto have been only a faint foretaste of what must be expected in future if the power of Germany for evil be not finally smashed. In the days when wars were gladiatorial combats between chosen teams, so to speak, decency, and even chivalry, could be observed, and generally were observed, by civilized nations. Hu:: now nations are pitted against nations in all their constituent parts. The use of the air as a new element in war changes every- thing. Where hundreds of aeroplanes are sent now on death-dealing missions, hundreds of thousands may be sent by a well-prepared nation in the future. We are only at the beginning of air-fighting. An unscrupulous State like Germany might lay a foreign capital in ruins within a -few minutes by a surprise declaration of war. We must reduce the possibilities of such nightmarish terrors. We must net them within bounds. But limitations imply good faith, and there is no place in the future system for a nation like Germany under her present rulers, all of whom have proved themselves utterly incapable of good faith.
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