Aug. 2.
The world is indeed getting smaller, not by actual contraction, but by the expansion of the borders of the various countries from political point of view, a° fact which was strongly emphasized by Mr. Stanley Baldwin in a lengthy debate in the House of Commons on Monday when a Labour vote of censure on the government's air' policy was heavily defeated. England's defence is no longer situated on the white cliffs of Dover, but. rather along the Rhine. There is nothing new in this apparent expansion of the natural boundaries of defence. Realization of the fact has been complete for some years past, indeed ever since the capabilities of the modern aeroplane came fully to be understood, and if a map were prepared showing the limits of each nation's defences there would be wide areas, shaded outside the geographical boundaries, representing exactly how far considerations of national protection would reach in the minds of those entrusted with that function. Indeed these areas would greatly overlap with the result that what Mr. Baldwin said with regard to the Rhine as the line of defence against middle European Powers, could with equal truth be said by Germany of the English Channel as the defensive boundary of Germany against a hostilely inclined Britain. To take the matter a little further it may with truth be con-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.