The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-04-08
WARN LONDON
 IF NEW PERIL FROM SKIES
Government Criticised for Spending Huge Sums Upon Ships and Armies While
 Supremacy in Heavens
 Is Left to France

LONDON, April :. - The manless aeroplane, piloted automatically over an enemy land. raining destruction in the form of bombs or gas, Is graphically pictured by Commander Charles D. Burney, inventor and member of parliament, in remarka- ble contribution to the defense. con troversy which is now engaging the attention of all England.
 Il see no difficulty in the Ise of aeroplanes without a man on board" said Commando. Burney in an inter- view. one could be produced tomor- row"
 Commander Burney gained fame during the war when, working under the greatest secrecy, he invented the paravane. device which provided the only real protection against floating mines and submerged sub- marines
 No topic is more universally de- bated over here these days than England's weakness in the air and her impotence in the event of an attack from the continent. It has been the more discussed since recent French "feelers" to abolition of all navies.
 Defense Moves To Air.
 Britain is spending $500, 900, 900
 
 CT Burney said, and the people are entitled to consider that an insur- ance premium of this magnitude is sufficient to insure safety.
 But it is no longer the strength If the navy that is our concern, for our defense against invasion has meen moved from the water to the air. England has ceased to be an island and is now part of the conti- nent so far as war is concerned. Our whole basis of waging war as prac- ticed during the last thousand years has changed"
 Commander Burney pointed out that, in the past. Britain has been an expanding empire, directing her energies through imperial channels and engaged on the continent. only in case of necessity and always in association with allies. But now England must carry both continental and imperial burdens-"and the con tinental burden is entirely aerial" French Supreme.
 France has eight times as many airplanes as we have" he continued, but that is only a flea bite. Sup pose we were to spend 100000 900 pounds a year on new aircraft-and before the war we spent as much as l7000.000 year on naval con-
 
 large double engine bombers :. year. One of these planes could carry 2,000 pounds for some 4G1 lniles and in a year or two will be- able to take f 4,000 pounds for 800 miless
 That would enable them to de- stroy any town with poison gas. Of course poison gas is forbidden by international agreement, but so was the torpedoing of unarmed vessels. Laboratories in some of the civilized countries have produced poison gas five thousand times as powerful as anything used in the war. Each air plane today can carry four to six times the load carried during the war.
 That means that poison gas at tack is twenty thousand times as powerful as it was during the war.
 What use are armies? What use are navies under such conditions" M.nlcs. Plane Possible.
 In order to master the defense problem, and work out adequate means of protection, Commander Burney pleads for new govern mental controlling organization, combined staff of the admiralty and the air ministry, to coordinate the new war problems. He fears that governmental red tape is discourag ing the development of new ideas and asks, Why is there no practice ing against Automatic airplanesY'
 Developing his idea of the manless airplane, Commander Burney said:
 Apart from the value of a man less airplane for the purpose of ade auately testing anti-aircraft deEices. such machine may possess consid- erable utility as weapon of of fense. Already there are reports of experiments in France with airplanes that do not carry any pilots, and the suggestion is made that machines of this kind, if loaded with explosives. could be used for the bombing of London by wireless
 q certainly think that inanless airplanes could be loaded with high explosive and sent off from an air ship. which could remain near enough to direct huge bomb to the target in view"
 Moreover. according to Commander Burney. there's no reason why Eng land shouldn't construct a submarine to carry collapsble aircraft which could fly to their objective for bomb ing, fighting or reconnaissance.
 And I don't see why" he added. instead of torpedoing a ship by the present method, we should not be able. by wireless control, to dis charge that torpedo from an air plane, keep the missile in the air thousand yards ahead. and direct it into the side of a ship or wherever else we want it to explode.
 We arc spending our millions in the wrong way. For all the millions we spend, we have one fighting squadron in Britain and no airships That is tranquility run mad"
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