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Aviation History
1917
1917 - 0692.PDF
them ? I said 50 only; but suppose 100 came, nay, 500—have we looked ahead and provided for such a contingency ? I fail to see from any official statement that the Governmentare awake to such a probability ; I say ' probability ' because I am convinced that wholesale air raids by aeroplanes willbe Germany's next card." We have quoted this article, not so much because of the prophecy—which we ourselves pronounced when we dealt with the first great raid on London— but because of the exact knowledge the writer pro- fesses to have of German intentions. There is no need for us to comment further on it, since we have given our warning of what we may expect in another article on this page of " FLIGHT." We warned the Government and the people what to expect, JULY 12, 1917. even come to the condition of things which obtain in France, where practically every munition worker is- a soldier and is paid and rationed accordingly. We are shrewdly of opinion that such a state of things would not appeal to the men who are willing to risk our success in the war for a paltry few shillings a week. To qur way of thinking, the Government has been far too tender with certain of these gentry. A little less temporising and more of the strong hand - would have done a lot of good. We have got to have the guns, the munitions and the aircraft, and if we cannot get them in one way we must in another^ The whole country and the army is behind the Government in this, except the greedy minority of though we had perforce to go on probabilities. Here, which we have spoken, and whether the offenders however, is a writer who avers that he knows—and within two days he is justified by the greatest air raid on London since the beginning of the war. The inferences are clear to be. read by the meanest intelligence. be employers 01 employed, they should have short shrift. LastSaturday's Air Raid. Sir J. Worthington Evans, Joint Parlia- liamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Munitions, had some disquieting things to say at Manchester the other day. The recent strike in the engineering trade, he said, had delayed gun production and repair. Cer- Strikesand the War. Again London has been subjected to-an attac ^ ^rom ^e a^r m t>road day- light, and the pity of it is that the enemy was again able to inflict a con- siderable amount of damage to life and property and to get away practically unscathed. Four machines down out of a minimum number of raiders of twenty-two is not flattering either to our amour propre as a nation or to the efficiency of our defences against this kind of attack. Fortunately, the people tainly they had several hundred guns less to-day than of London, fortified by their experience in previousthey would have had if no strike had taken place, and they could never overtake the loss. They would raids, neither lost their heads nor acted with therashness that has been displayed in other raids. always, no matter how great the urgency, have lost and> when the hostile machines appeared over the guns just as truly as if they had been captured by the enemy. So also with aeroplanes. They lost output, and were weaker in consequence. Guns, aeroplanes, motors, tanks—lots of all of them— were still wanted for an overwhelming concentration all the way along the front. That made a further dilution of skilled labour with semi-skilled and un- skilled labour absolutely necessary. There was no other way of obtaining the supplies that were called for. Dilution in private work in particular could not be avoided. He was sure no one would be content to let the fighting men go short, or to bring privation upon the country by letting the sub- marines get the command of the seas. Skilled men had to be found for the essential things, but if they were taken from private work without dilution that meant that many of the firms doing private work would have to shut up. Dilution of labour, as we have repeatedly pointed out, is the only way in which we can at one and the same time maintain an adequate supply of munitions for carrying on the war, and keep private trade and enterprise going in order to raise money to pay for it. We are afraid that this is an aspect which does not appeal to a very large section of the labour world, which is incapable of seeing farther than the imme- diate present. There is too much of a disposition in such quarters to regard the present glut of work and high wages in the munition businesses as some- thing that is automatic and self-contained. They are incapable of seeing that if, as Sir J. Worthington Evans pointed out, the private workshops have to J)e shut down to provide skilled labour for the output erf munitions it would mean ruin for whole industries. ^Moreover, with the virtual stoppage of private enter- prise, the conditions of Government work would, we think, have to be drastically revised, and we might Metropolis, sought cover with commendable promptitude, with the result that although the raid was on a far larger scale than ever, the casualty bill was very much lower than in the raid of a month ago. The relatively small loss of life is the only satisfactory feature of the raid, if it is permissible to view with anything approaching satisfaction an enemy invasion of Britain, conducted with virtual impunity. With regard to the several aspects of aeroplane raids on London, it seems to us that, under all the circumstances, the matter of warnings in case of threatened raids is one of the principal considera- tions upon which a decision has to be taken. After the previous daylight raid, we pronounced against warnings, for reasons which we then gave. Since then, and in the light of last week's experience, we are inclined to modify those opinions. We make no excuse either for our previous attitude or for our change of opinion. We have erred and repented in good company. After considering the question from every point of view, we have come to the conclusion that what is wanted is a system of giving " short warnings " in cases where it is obvious that London is the objective of hostile aircraft. A quarter of an hour would be ample for all purposes, and there should be no difficulty in arranging for that. What it is desirable to avoid, and it was that difficulty which led us to pronounce against warnings, is a persistent cry of " Wolf ! " when there is no- wolf. We do not want London alarmed and kept for hours in a state of tension every time a hostile machine is reported halfway across the sea en route for the coast-line. So long as adequate precautions are taken against -alarming the Metropolis un- necessarily, we conceive that the "short warning'* system should be a good thing. 692
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