An important straw as showing the way the wind is blowing in Germany is the re-
Will be remembered that, when the British first started attacking the Ruhr, the Germans evacuated many people from that area into southern as palpably untrue. ment now faces the fact that the growth of the British air machine is already such as it within measurable distance of t, and that the time is not now Very far distant when Great Britain will be &ble'to retaliate in kind for the blows which have been struck at cities in the British This evacuation is in itself an admission of the growing air might of Great Britain, and of the fact that there is no part of Germany itself which cannot now be reached 3 With the new big bombers which carry heavy loads of the new bombs which are reported as having such a devastating effect on the objectives on which they have been dropped. Obviously bombs having such a wide destructive area will be far more deadly than anything which has been produced up to the present, and the evacuation of as many people as possible from the immediate vicinity of military objectives is in the circumstances a wise precaution. It will be noticed that the imminent increase in the intensity of war in the air is now forcing the Germans to adopt the same procedure as that which Great Britain devised much earlier, and is in itself a confession that the Germans know full well what they have to expect.
The issue of gas masks to the Czech workers in Germany is another indication of the anxiety with which the German Government awaits the future. It was not to be expected that the Germans would be particularly tender towards the labourers they have forced to serve them in Germany, but labour in that country is becoming as scarce as it is likely to do in Great Britain, and the Czech is becoming increasingly valuable to his subjugators. It may yet be some time before Great Britain reaches parity in the air with Germany, and, of the many estimates of the time at which that will come, the earliest is September, though more cautious experts believe that it will not be until next year. Nevertheless as the weeks have passed by the British output of aeroplanes reinforced by the increasing supplies which have been coming from the United States has resulted in a slow but sure reduction of the great disparity which existed between the British and German air forces at the commencement of the war.
It is no more than three weeks ahead that the nights will again commence to lengthen. That will not be very appreciable for a month or two to come. But the time is not far distant when darkness will permit of the R.A.F. ranging the length and breadth of Germany: in much greater force than was possible during last autumn, winter and spring. The moment is coming when Mr. Churchil's promise, that what has been done to Great Britain will be avenged, will be fulfilled. Already considerable destruction has been wreaked on- important points in Germany, but much more will have to be done to bring home to the German people the iniquity of what their air force has been doing. They will in the not too distant future have an opportunity of showing when ther: they can stand up to air-raids as the British have been doing, but what is more important is that they will be having the war brought home to them in a manner which they escaped during the last war and "which made too many of them cocksure of winning this. The evacuation of the German children is sure proof that Hitler and his accomplices know what is ahead.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.