Barbarism and Bombs Civilisation is being confronted by Germany, Italy
and Japan with an appalling and to all appearance insoluble problem. The brutal and barbaric savagery of the bombing raids in Spain and China produces in every casual reader of the daily papers a sense of sickening despair of the future of the human race. If a distinction is to be drawn between degrees of barbarism, the palm no doubt must go to Japan, who makes no secret of her intention to employ frightfulness without restraint or limit as a means to blast a way to victory. The stories of the carnage in the crowded streets and alleys of Canton increase in hideousness daily. The slaughter in Spain, inflicted mainly, there is little doubt, by German and Italian airmen, is on a smaller scale, but little less indiscriminate. What action a country like Great Britain can take in such circumstances is a question to which critics who gird, like Mr. Lloyd George, at the Government for its supineness would do well to supply some answer. The proposal to send international commissions to Spain to investigate bombed areas and discover what military objectives they in fact contained is a good one, and it is to be hoped that the United States may agree to co-operate, as Norway and Sweden have already done. The reports of the Com- missions may arouse the moral indignation of the world, but it is idle to suppose that that will trouble the totalitarian Governments greatly. Retaliation in kind means sinking to the level of the aggressors. But Italy at least could be told that if she values the recent agreement these things must cease. * * *
