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than the full use of the weapon to which man has always clung. Weapons have become more and more efficient, in an ever rising scale. And men have always armed themselves with the best they could get when they faced their armed enemies. But have they used their weapons with progressive ruthlessness against non-combatants? Has there not been, on the contrary, a progressive amelioration in the use of physical forces against other than armed enemies?

This is the real point at issue, so far as the past is concerned. Granting that it is foolish to ignore the consistent lesson of all history in regard to the progressive development of arms, is it not equally foolish to shut one's eyes to a plain tendency of larger aspect? For it can not well be denied that the whole trend of what we call civilization has been and is towards humanizing the relations between man and his fellow men, not only in peace but in war. The German idea of frightfulness was a flare-back, and an unsuccessful one at that. It did not pay. Even if it had been successful, it would still have marked a long step ahead of the inhuman methods of four hundred years before, or even a hundred years. There was no sack of Magdeburg, no open pillage of Badajoz.

Aërial bombing in the World War had reached a stage of development which might have made it devastating had it been employed without restriction on civilian populations. And so had gas. Yet, in spite of the intensity of the struggle and the heat of passion on both sides, it is clear that there were certain self-imposed limitations in aërial attacks. London and Paris were bombed, it is true, and there was talk of bombarding Berlin at the time of the Armistice. Yet there does not appear to have been, on either side, full and unrestricted use of air power against noncombatants. Perhaps the best proof of this is the failure to use in the aërial bombardments of cities. Gas would have been an ideal weapon, both from the point of view of killing and of shattering morale. But both sides, in theory at least, generally confined their aërial attacks to military targets-munition factories, railroad yards, arsenals, docks, etc.—and in practice made some notable attempts to avoid indiscriminate killing of innocent people. On the Allied side there were many cases recorded in

gas

which airmen refused to drop their bombs merely for the sake of killing. On the German side, Admiral Scheer says in his book that "Airships frequently returned from their expeditions with their full complement of bombs because they had not been able to make out such [military] targets with sufficient certainty. It would have been easy enough for them, before returning, to get rid of their bombs and drop them over any place over which they happened to fly, if they had wanted to kill harmless citizens.'

It is, of course, obvious that the bombing of munition plants, railroad centers, dockyards and such, even though they entailed the loss of innocent lives, were blows directed against the armed forces of the enemy, not against the enemy's will-to-fight as embodied in his civil population. They were, in effect quite different from the form of warfare which this newer school is now predicting and even advocating. The crippling of the enemy's armed forces, which they say may be ignored, was in general the aërial objective; and neither side attempted from the air an unrestricted devastation of civilian centers as a means of breaking the enemy's will.

The objective of the "Big Bertha" bombardment of Paris was, it is true, very largely morale effect on a civilian population. But the means employed were land guns, not of the largest caliber and certainly not capable of devastation on the scale of an aërial attack with gas or explosives. The same relative amount of damage to a city constituting an "entrenched camp" done by artillery fire a hundred years ago would have caused little comment. In these days, however, the world moves towards other standards.

There were evidencies of a distinct humanitarian influence, even in the unbridled days of 1914-1918. And since then it seems significant that the Great Powers should have signed, though some of them failed to ratify, a treaty forbidding ruthless submarine warfare and the use of gas or liquid fire even against hostile troops. Perhaps of still greater moment are the Hague Air Warfare Rules of 1923, which forbid “aërial bombardment for the purpose of terrorizing the civilian population, of destroying or damaging private property not of military character, or of injuring non-combatants". It is all very well to say that no rules are

observed in war-witness Germany's use of gas. But there is such a thing as a trend of influence in the civilized world. If you want to measure its direction and force as applied to the conduct of war, compare the recognized methods of warfare as they affected non-combatants in, say, 1200 A.D. and in every century mark since that date. Putting the inhabitants to the sword meant massacre; and sack meant wholesale looting, rape and arson; and pillage meant taking whatever you could find of value. Each in its day meant simply war to the unfortunate man or woman who fell into the enemy's clutches. And each in its day was banned from the usages of war into the category of crimes. Or, if you want to see this same general tendency from a different angle, observe the growth of human respect for human life and sensibility in times of peace. From the days when all sorts of petty lordlings held in their hands the power of life and death and the droit du seigneur, through the long period of slavery, torture, floggings and public hangings for minor crimes, we have come to the point at which it is distressingly difficult to execute even a condemned murderer.

Working against the theory of ruthless warfare on non-combatants is also the hard fact of retaliation. Unless you are fighting naked savages, or at least very ill-equipped foes, there is always the disagreeable possibility that the killing of non-combatants may be met by retaliation, if not in kind at least in some very brutal form. That, of course, is the moral of the German violation of the Hague treaties in regard to gas. Retaliation cost her more in the end than her delinquency gained for her.

During the World War the effect of the fear of retaliation was apparent, even in the armies themselves. Both sides usually knew the location of hostile headquarters. But they were not often deliberately bombed, simply because the answer was so apparent. The "gros bonnets" looked out for themselves, if you like. And one suspects that in future wars the "gros bonnets" commanding nations will be similarly inclined to look out for themselves and their innocent political adherents.

The fear of retaliation is not a force to be lightly brushed aside. It is one thing for a government to send its conquering armies into the heart of the enemy territory, hold down hostile power and en

force peace. It is quite another thing to stake all on blows of ruthless devastation and risk retaliation.

In reality it comes down to this: These later-day critics who talk of scrapping all the old principles of war and winning through wholesale aërial bombardment or the cutting of sea communications by submarine operations, are advocating massacre of noncombatants. They believe that the humanizing trend of civilization may be reversed and set back a thousand years. They believe that international agreements looking to the protection of innocent lives in war, by land and sea, will be disregarded; that the use of no weapon, however indiscriminate may be its power of destruction, will be limited in war; and that no fear of retaliation will stay the hands of those in authority. If they are right in these assumptions; and if, further, they are correct in believing that their attack will succeed in spite of all forms of defense, then they are undoubtedly right in their conclusion that the fundamentals of warfare have been knocked into a cocked hat. In fact, war as we know it now will be no more. Instead there will be only a frantic race to blot out the enemy's people before our own choke to death in the ruins of their cities.

In the mean while the United States, fortunately or unfortunately as you choose to see it, abides by its Rules of Land Warfare of 1914: "The measure of permissible devastation is found in the strict necessities of war. As an end in itself, as a separate measure of war, devastation is not sanctioned by the laws of war. There must be some reasonably close connection between the destruction of property and the overcoming of the enemy's army."

WHAT OF THE IRISH FREE STATE?

BY RIGHT HON. SIR JAMES O'CONNOR, K.C.

THE psychological was the worst of the evils wrought on Ireland by the Union. In a national struggle, the propaganda is bound to be intensive, reckless and extravagant, and all the more so in the case of a quick-witted, imaginative and emotional people like the Irish. Each generation of Irish political leaders taught their followers-and perhaps persuaded themselvesthat Ireland could become a rich, great and powerful nation if its legislative and administrative machinery were controlled from Dublin instead of London. According to O'Connell, the water power in Ireland could turn all the machinery in the world. Ireland's geographical position was described as the most favorable in Europe for trade and commerce. Minerals, especially coal, were in great and easily available quantities in the bowels of the earth, awaiting exploitation at the hands of a home Government; a tariff wall against England's manufactured goods would make Ireland an industrial country. The character of the people had scarcely a flaw in its composition. There was land enough, and to spare, for everybody.

What is the truth concerning Ireland's position, considered from the economic point of view? Ireland's coal is of poor description, found in seams from twelve to eighteen inches thick -it is absurd to speak of it as an asset. As to peat, the process of preparing it for industrial purposes makes it much more costly than coal. Ireland is in shape like a saucer, with its mountains (the highest of which is 3300 feet) forming the rim, and there is no considerable fall in its rivers-something will be said later on of the Shannon scheme. The island is less than 30,000 square miles in extent, and a considerable portion is bog and mountain. Its climate is, on the whole, damp and enervating. Its people have many virtues, but, speaking generally, hard work and perseverance are not very common. The country has no natural

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