As we read General Smuts's speech, he bases the necessity
of
bombing Gorman towns on military grounds. And on those
grounds we cannot dispute the decision. Several correspondents who have written to us seem to think that General Smuts accepts the doctrine of what is generally and rather loosely spoken of as "reprisal "—the policy of answering frightfulness by frightfulness without calculating its military value. It moms to us, however, that General Smuts meant nothing of the sort. He is far too careful a thinker and far too good a soldier. In fact, after using
the words we have quoted above, he went on to say : "We shall do our beat to avoid German abominations, and to spare as far as- hum ably possible the innocent and the defenceless, but it is inevit- able that in any extended aerial offensive into enemy territory, into which we have now been forced, they shall to some extent also suffer. It has nob been our doing, and the blame must rest on an enemy who apparently recognizes no laws, human or divine."
