14 
LAND eS: W A T E R 
March 30, njiG 
pressure being applied to the Goveriuiieut, the thesis of 
the psyehological theorists is proven, and in fact the 
vahie of an attack on the civihan population as a means 
of undermining the power of the (lovernment is estab- 
hshed. The question therefore turns defmitcly upon the 
extent of the damage inflicted as related to what may be 
tenned the psychological reaction produced. 
Relative Magnitude of Peril 
In order to form an estimate of tlie relative magni- 
tude of the Zeppehn peril in this country as based on 
experience, we may take the recorded iigures over a 
sufficient period of time. Thus, during the past six 
months the killed amount to 138 and injured 274, total 
casualties 412. If we take the period of twelve months, 
the figure is roughly double this, so that we may take 
it that the punishment inflicted to date is less than 1,000 
victims (killed and injured) per annum. 
If this were the only method (Germany had to carry 
on war it would take considerably more than 45,000 
years to stamp out the British nation, even if we had no 
rate of increase. Otherwise expressed, we may say that 
it is not much more than i/ioooth of the total annual 
number of births, and as a quantity which, if visited by 
the Angel of Death in a less dramatic manner, would 
escape observation in the nation's statistics. We may 
look at the matter from the other point of view, namely 
the loss in pounds, shillings and pence. The total 
damage (so far as I know not actually estimated) , 
probably does not exceed one, or at must two days' 
expenses of the British nation in running the war, and 
it nuist be remembered that a great part of the property 
destroyed does not of necessity need to be replaced during 
the war, and is property which is in any case not 
available for the carrying on of hostilities. As a matter 
of economics there is evidently room for argument, 
but the main fact that the real direct damage inflicted by 
these raids is infmitcsimal from the j)oint of view of the 
whole national wealth, is beyond doubt. This broad 
issue is usually sunmiarised by saying the damage done. 
by raids is of no military value to the enemy. 
A certain writer on the subject has taken exception 
to the current use of the term " military value " ; he 
points out (rather unnecessarily) that every civihan 
killed does weaken the nation, especially if he or she may 
happen to be a munition-worker and contributing in an 
indirect way to the success of our armies. It may be 
supposed that the writer in question thinks that he has 
made a great discovery, but he may lest assured that 
facts of this kind are well understood. 
National Injury 
It scarcely needs mention that tlic statistical method 
of dealing with a national injury, where life and death 
is concerned, is not a complete answer, but it is the 
crucial test as distinguishing between material and moral 
damage. In a civihsed country imder peace conditions 
the individual citizen rightly expects the privilege of 
the best assurance against violent death which the State 
can offer him ; this expectation is indeed the source from 
which the necessity flrst for tribal and later for national 
organisation has sprung, but the conditions of war abro- 
gate this privilege. When many of our citizen soldiers are 
called upon to sacrifice their lives in the defence of their 
cotmtrv, the material or statistical measure of the 
national injury inflicted by the enemy in any of his acts 
is, or should be, the real criterion. 
Thus, if the damage done in the past twelve months 
by Zeppelin raids had represented an augmented result 
of earthquakes and thunderstorms, England would be 
no more shunned as a dangerous country to live in than it 
is to-day : the injury inflicted at the same rate year after 
year would be such as could be borne, both in lives lost 
and property destroyed, without a noticeable or appreci- 
able tax on'our national resources. Compared with the 
wastage of men and material in the conduct of the main 
operations of the war the figures are truly microscopic. 
Under these conditions it can be asserted without hesita- 
tion that the outcry raised for protection, the outcry 
that the (iovernment and Services have been neglecting 
their duties, the outcry that the (iovernment must be 
" gingered," that it requires waking up, and more than 
this in manv quarters, that it must b: turned out, is in fact, 
and in reality, the very effect which military writers 
and psychologists of the German school had confidently 
expected. Thus, in shaking the popular nerve we have a 
real justification for air raids and otlier modes of ternjris- 
ing the civil population of a hostile country, of such potent 
value that it will always be resorted to by a foe without 
scruple. We must never in future allow ourselves to be 
lulled into a false security in such matters by the pseudo- 
legal sophistry of international agreements. 
We have thus as a nation lost a great opportunity. 
If we had been prepared to take the Zeppelin menace as 
philosophically as we would have taken an outbreak of 
measles, or of volcanic or earthquake activity, or as 
philosophically as we would have taken some meteoro- 
logical cataclysm involving previously unheard of injury 
by lightning, it might have been established that the 
bombing of civilians was useless slaughter without 
appreciable military advantage. The fact that our 
population has been unequal to the ordeal means that 
no nation in considering its military future will be able 
to remov'e the bombing of civilians from either its offen- 
sive or defensive programme. In other words, Bern- 
hardi-isn; and the German study of collective psychology 
has triumphed. 
Recent Unrest 
There are those who will say that the unrest with 
regard to the air service which has manifested itself in the 
course of the last few months is nothing to do with the 
Zeppelin bombing, and that it is due to a general dis- 
satisfacti(jn with a branch of om- military and na\al 
organisation. The brief answer to this is to leatl the 
daily papers, either in the matter contained in articles 
or in " letters to the editor," or otherwise bearing on 
the" subject ; it will be found that an overwhelming 
majority of what is said hinges on this one question of the 
Zeppelin raid. .And it could not be otherwise, for the 
British Flying Corps and oiu" Allies the French have, from 
the time the first surprise was countered, possessed and 
maintained an aerial ascendancy. 
The real complaint is not against the weakness 
or deficiencies of the aeronautical branches of our 
Services. Our preparations in this direction were 
adequate, and we have maintained our positiijn since. It 
is debatable whether we could have done more. It 
may be debatable whether by making fewer shells or less 
mechanical transport we might have squeezed out more 
aeroplanes from our factories. It may be debatable 
whether the aggregate output from our factories has been 
as big as it might have been if we had had a man of 
Cromwellian cast at the helm. It may be debatable 
whether, while Cabinet Ministers have been striking 
bargains with miners, with labour leaders, with married 
men versus bachelors, and occupying themselves with 
other domestic quibbles, they could not by speaking 
the word have done more than they have doni'. In 
brief, it may be argued that more could have been dfic 
by command than by entreaty ; but these are general 
questions and must not be exploited to the detriment 
of our Air Service. 
The truth is, in the directions essential to the con- 
duct of warfare we have an ascendancy, it may lie 
greater, it nun- be less, but it exists. B\- what right do 
the Press and Public (the same Public, which is so largely 
resi)onsible for our early widespread mipreparedness) - 
bv what right do they open their niouths to blacken the 
character (tf those to whom this air service is due. I say 
emphatically that the whole of this jHcsent air agitation, 
sometimes for counter-aircraft artillery, sometimes for 
Zeppelins or " super-Zeppelins," in brief the whole 
agitation which has been worked up against the Govern- 
ment on the i)resent position of our aeronautical equip- 
ment is based on the ephemeral success of the German 
bomb. It is a public spasm of funk, resulting from a 
calctdated blow on our national solar plexus. 
In tlefence of all that is best in our national character 
it may be jiointed out that before districts had beconie 
so depleted of their more virile population, as in tht; earher 
raids on London, the only noteworthy effect of a Zeppelin 
raid was a stiffening of the piiblic moral and a local boom 
in recruiting. The opposite effect which we see to-day 
and of which we have widespread (>vidence — is probably 
to be accounted for by the fact that the more virile of 
our manhood has gone voluntarily to serve with His 
Majesty's F'orces. 
