One of the errors of the Ministry of Infor-motion in London,—or is it the censorship?—Is the manner in' which consistent failure to) ive an adequate account of British alr activi-les over the North Sea, has created the impression that the British alr force is doing little anything to ward off German air attacks on, shipping. The two messages published elsowhere today should serve to dispel any such Impression, It_was announced some time ago Chat further reference to British Mights over the North Sea and German bases would be dis continued, as they were considered to be pure-Ay routine matters. That decision may have been wise one, but there will continue to be some. doubt about it. Fortunately such messages 03 those to which reference is made serve to show that the Air Force Ison' its toes, and doing effective work in. the protection of the mer cantile shipping and trawlers which are becom-victims of the German aviators to an in= creasingly less degree, 'The arming of every type of vessel which' travels the North Sea against the German aeroplanes Is a step in the right direction, Experfenee has shown that, whether they are armed. or not, the German plan is to attack every form of craft encountered, and the only possible answer to such proceedings is to equip the threatened vessels with 4 means of fighting off their attackers. That this can be done is demonstrated in one of today's cables. German bombers fancied. they had an easy prey in, the shape of a trawler off the Norfolk coast. Flying low to attack they were met with a hail of bullets from the vessel's new. machine-iun, whereupon they. quickly made off while the trawler continued on her way unharmed, The machine-gunning of unarmed fishermen from German aeroplanes has been quite a feature of this war, but experience shows that while German aviators profer to do this so long as their victims are unable to strike back, effective resistance is a horse of an entirely different colour, and something for which these airman apparently have no stomach whatever,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.