Ultimately the true solution of the air raid problem is
to form the German line in Belgium so far back that German raiders would be obliged (1) to fly an impossibly long distance to London, and (2) to pass over so much hostile country before reaching the sea that it would not be worth their while to undertake the risks. As it is, it is almost impossible to prevent hostile raids by night. Searchlights pick up aeroplanes only by accident. Anti-aircraft gunfire is directed at exceedingly vague objects. Aeroplanes which climb up to attack the raiders have the greatest difficulty in finding their enemy, and even when they think they have found him are not sure that they are not about to attack a friend. Under these conditions, the admit conclusion is that what cannot be cured has in the main to be endured, and we should despair of the spirit of the British people if we did not think that they were prepared to put up with a fragment of the sufferings of the men at the front. Even at the front, whore guns are most plentiful, it seems that an aeroplane is seldom brought down by artillery-fire at night. By night our aeroplanes bomb the German lines and the German aeroplanes bomb ours ; the combatants pass to end fro with little hindrance, and the result is what might be called an exchange of bombing courtesies in which the winner is not the bettor fighter in the air—since there is no fighting—but the man who is skilful enough to carry to the right point the larger amount of bombing material
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