More London air raids

For reasons best known to themselves the Germans are showing a curious persistence in air attacks upon London. There have been raids lately on four successive nights, that of Monday night being the longest which has been experienced at the heart of the Empire.

As a result, 52 persons are reported to have been killed and 257 to have been injured in London within a week. If this be the complete list of casualties the Germans have probably as little to congratulate themselves upon in respect of the material damage they have inflicted as they have upon the score of the destruction of non-combatant life.

It is rather difficult, upon the somewhat meagre information which has been supplied to us, to judge just how the battle has gone between the air defences of London and the attacking air fleets, but the difficulty experienced by the enemy in getting over London at all, despite the determination evinced in their successive raids, would seem to suggest that the claim that a great improvement has been effected in the aerial defences of the city has been well founded.

Aviation is, however, essentially a progressive art, and the character of its development can hardly be predicted.

It is small wonder in all the circumstances that a strong desire has been evinced for something more than a merely defensive reply to the attacks upon London. The air defences that are capable of stopping and driving back the enemy today may be incapable of achieving that result tomorrow.

Or, to put the case another way, the defences that might now drive off a score of enemy machines might later on prove quite inadequate to repel five times as many, and there is no guarantee that the raiding squadrons will not be increased greatly in size.

The question of reprisals is again being raised, and it has been asserted that ruthless British raids on German cities are imminent. To the belief that Great Britain will retaliate in kind, some colour will be given by the declaration which Mr Lloyd George is reported to have made this week on his visit to a raided area in London.

Nor can it be doubted that reprisals would have a distinct value. It is at least noteworthy that the French, who carry out reprisals for attacks upon open towns, are to a very great extent spared visitations of the class to which Great Britain is subjected.

If the British have to adopt the view that unfortified German towns are to be bombed it will merely be because the Germans have brought retaliation on their own heads in the pursuance of such a method of warfare.

French agricultural lessons

In the course of a letter from France a New Zealand soldier says: ''I am thankful that I have chosen the life on the land, as it will come easy to me to return and put to practical use the valuable lessons in agriculture which I have learned out here.

This is a wonderful country, and offers a permanent lesson in intense cultivation. I am certain now that we in New Zealand never really understood what intense cultivation meant. I marvel at the work the women of France are doing towards maintaining their reputation and towards winning the war.

The manhood of France is fighting to the last possible recruit, and only the women and old men are left to carry on. Yet in spite of this every acre of land is producing as much as it ever produced, with only women working in the fields everywhere, doing men's work and doing it well without a grumble.

Their's is a great and glorious part, and their burden of sorrow is second only to that of sacrifice.''

Life member

A rather unusual step was taken at the annual meeting of the Greymouth Trotting Club, when Mrs Kitchingham was elected a life member.

The distinction was conferred on the lady as a mark of appreciation of the manner in which she had conducted the club's tearooms.

Diphtheria at Bluff

Despite every effort on the part of the health and medical officers, the epidemic of diptheria continues to rage unabated (says the Bluff Press).

A rumour now in circulation, which, in view of the many dastardly things our enemies have been guilty of, will gain credence, is that the outbreak has been traced by the medical authorities to a certain brand of chocolate which has been inoculated in a foreign country with the germs of the disease.

Should the rumour be true, the public may look for intelligence on the subject at an early date.

- ODT, 4.10.1917.

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