It is definitely encouraging to note that the British Government has decided upon a nationwide round-up of all enemy aliens in Great Britain, The step is to be taken as the first indication of the energy with which the new Cabinet intends to prosecute the war. It will be remembered that at the commencement of hostilities the question was dealt with on so lenient a basis as to call for very considerable criticism. Further tribunals were appointed to revise original decisions, and were at work when the war flared up in the manner it did last week. Incidents in the Low Countries, where German nationals have sought to create disorder behind the lines, have clearly shown what might have happened in Great Britain had the steps which have now been announced not been taken. Attempts to seize the centre of the city at The Hague, led to street fighting in which over one hundred Germans were killed.
Apparently over 140 Germans were involved in the move, clearly showing the strength of the enemy aliens in Holland. There is consequently plenty of reason to believe that a substantial proportion of the alien enemies in Great Britain, who have contrived to enter the country as refugees might have sought to create trouble and dislocate the ordinary processes whereby a nation at war hopes to be able to carry on. The decision to round them up and confine them in camps is in view of what has been happening on the Continent a particularly wise one. It will be regretted that innocent refugees will thus be brought into close contact with thoroughly dyed in the wool Nazi agents, and that they may fter accordingly. It should not, however, be very long before the latter are weeded out and isolated in camps apart from the refugees. The importance of the decision is to be found in the fact that in Great Bi there are no fewer than seventy thousand refugees from central Europe. Their internment will mean the utter collapse of the German intelligence system which received severe blows at the commencement of the war, while it will also ensure the protection of the British rear from the effects of underground intrigue designed to hamper the prosecution of hostilities, Air Forces Hitting Back It is gratifying to note that the Allies in the information which they release to the press are now being as expansive as military caution permits, and the frankness with which developments are reported is particularly pleasing. Judging from the reports, which have been received since the Germans commenced their onslaught on the Low Countries, the Allied air forces have been giving a remarkably good account of themselves, and have succeeded in inflicting considerable damage upon the enemy air arm and upon troops, and war material behind the lines. With the world thoroughly well supplied with German claims of what they are doing behind the Allied lines, it is just as well that all should know that similar blows are being inflicted upon them on land. In encounters with enemy aircraft the Allies have been doing exceptionally well and the losses inflicted upon the Germans up to the present indicate the superiority of the Allied machines and the men flying them. If there has been no overlapping of reports, which, of course, is quite possible, the Germans should have lost somewhere in the neighbourhood of three hundred machines since last Friday morning. The Allied figures have not been announc: d, but the manner in which Allied air squadrons have taken on larger German forces, and "got away with it^ clearly shows probability of their air losses being much smaller than those of the enemy. Anti-aircraft artillery is also playing an important part in the defence of the Low Countries, and all parts menaced by the German aeroplanes, and the figures announced of the number of enemy machines which have been shot down from the ground go to prove that this arm efficiently handled is one the value of which should not be underestimated. On the figures available Germany has been losing more machines than she can possibly hope to replace in the same time, and, if this gots on much longer. the losses inflicted upon the German air arm should prove formidable On the facts as shown the Allies have no reason to fear that their air forces are unequal to the important work demanded of them.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.