Point is added to Mr. Winston Churchill's speech at tne City Council luncheon in Lon-ton on Monday by the publication of the German air-raid casualties in Great Britain for the first half of this year. For the six months, ending June 30, 18,314 persons were killed. In the previous semester 23,960 lost their lives, so that for a whole year 42,274 were slain by German aircraft. That roughly covers the time since the Battle of Britain began making permissible the inference that the total British losses under' this heading are in the neighbourhood of 50,000 dead. "The number of injured is not available, but it is apparent that the amount of suffering caused by indiscriminate German bombing must indeed be considerable. That has to be avenged. Mr. Churchill has reiterated his promise that it will be We believe it will be in our power to keep the process. (of systematic bombing on a large scale of German cities, seaports, industries and other, military objectives) going on, a steadily rising tide month after month, year after year, until the Nazi regime is emer extirpated by us, or, better still, is torn to pieces by the German people themselves.
The Prime Minister very probably interpreted the feelings of the people of London when he averred that, if they were asked to consent to a convention to stop the bombing of all cities, they would emphatically refuse. Mr. Churchill put into their mouths sentiments which must be felt by everyone who has been brought to a realization of the hideous behaviour of the Nazi air force. Doubtless such a refusal on the part of the Londoners would be inspired by the desire for revenge, and there are those sickly sentimentalists who, even now, would deplore the harbouring of such feelings. But retaliatory bombing of Germany has a very practical consideration to support it. One of the factors which has contributed so greatly to the military ardour of the Germans is that for a very long time past war, and all that it means, has not been brought home to German soil. This immunity from suffering which they have thus had has led to a positive enjoyment of warfare of which they must be cured if Europe is ever to have peace.
It is necessary that the horrors of war shall be brought home to the German people who must in their bodies and their lives endure the sufferings which the wickedness of their masters has inflicted upon others. The innocent blood spilt in the cities of Britain, in Warsaw, in Rotterdam, in Belgrade, the very stones of those cities cry out for retaliation, and it is necessary that the Germans should be made to pay for the crimes which their leaders have forced them to commit and in which so many of them have so readily indulged. Mr. Churchill, too, did not forget that "unhappy, abject subject-province of Germany which used to be called Italy" which will have its fair share too. It will be remembered that Mussolini announced so gleefully last year that Italian aeroplanes were participating in the bombing of Britain. Naples already knows something of that poetic beauty which his son saw in the slaughter of the Abyssinians from the air, and the fact that that city and other objectives in Italy have been on the receiving end of Bruno's method of aesthetic enjoyment causes no sorrow in the hearts of the British "It is time," Mr, Churchill said, "the Germans should be made to suffer in their own homeland and cities something of the torment they twice in our lifetime have let loose upon their neighbours and upon the world." With that there will be comparatively few who will disagree. The time for stern retribution is coming nearer, and it would indeed be a faint heart which would not insist that the Germans shall be made to drink the dregs of their own foul brewing. Every month which passes, and adds strength to the British and Allied air arms brings closer that time when there shall be meted out to the Germans overflowing measure of the death, destruction, and suffering which they have so light-heartedly inflicted on others. It is impossible to ascertain the full total of the death dealt out to civilians from the air in the various countries which Germany has attacked, but it is clear that the reckoning must run into hundreds of thousands. Mr. Churchill has repeated his promise that they shall not have died unavenged. The Germans have asked, by their conduct, for what is coming to them, and it would' be imprudent on the part of Great Britain to withhold it.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.