A Ban on Air-War ?
• The recent air manoeuvres over London have driven home once more the conviction to which all such exercises invariably point, that no adequate defences against air attack exist—except, indeed, counter-attack on the enemy aerodromes, if that can be described as defence. With anti-aircraft guns in action, as they were not at these last manoeuvres, the success of the attacking force in reaching its objectives might be less, and its losses greater, but the effects of its onslaught would still be devastating. That fact, and the practical demonstration of it given by the air exercises, lends added significance to the important statement made by the Under-Secretary for Air in the.House of Commons, while the manoeuvres were actually in progress, that the Government was giving intensive study to the question of securing the abolition of air-warfare alto- gether by international agreement. To say that the Government is studying an idea does not mean that the Government has decided to adopt it, still less to put it forward at next year's Disarmament Conference, but the fact that the proposal to abolish air warfare is actually under serious consideration in official circles provides the best of reasons why it should be discussed with equal seriousness elsewhere.
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