My Lords, the question which I have to ask is beset with difficulties. It deals with an issue which must have [its] own anxieties for the Government, and certainly causes great searchings of heart amongst large numbers of people who are as resolute champions of the Allied cause as any member of your Lordships' House. If long-sustained and public opposition to Hitler and the Nazis since 1933 is any credential, I would humbly claim to be one of the most convinced and consistent Anti-Nazis in Great Britain. But I desire to challenge the Government on the policy which directs the bombing of enemy towns on the present scale, especially with reference to civilians, non-combatants, and non-military and non-industrial objectives. I also desire to make it plain that, in anything I say on this issue of policy, no criticism is intended of the pilots, the gunners, and the air crews who, in circumstances of tremendous danger, with supreme courage and skill, carry out the simple duty of obeying their superiors' orders.
§ Few will deny that there is a distinction in principle between attacks on military and industrial objectives and attacks on objectives which do not possess that character. At the outbreak of the war, in response to an appeal by President Roosevelt, the Governments of the United Kingdom and France issued a joint declaration of their intention to conduct hostilities with a firm desire to spare the civilian population and to preserve in every way possible those monuments of human achievement which are treasured in all civilized countries. At the same time explicit instructions were issued to the Commanders of the Armed Forces prohibiting the bombardment, whether from the air or from the sea or by artillery on land, of any except strictly military objectives in the narrowest sense of the word. Both sides accepted this agreement. It is true that the Government added that, ‘In the event of the enemy not observing any of the restrictions which the Governments of the United Kingdom and France have thus imposed on the operation of their Armed Forces, these Governments reserve the right to take all such action as they may consider appropriate.’ It is true that on May 10, 1940, the Government publicly proclaimed their intention to exercise this right in the event of bombing by the enemy of civilian populations. But the point which I wish to establish at this moment is that in entering the war there was no doubt in the Government's mind that the distinction between military and non-military objectives was real.
§ Further, that this distinction is based on fundamental principles accepted by civilized nations is clear from the authorities in International Law. I give one instance the weight of which will hardly be denied. The Washington Conference on Limitation of Armaments in 1922 appointed a Commission of Jurists to draw up a code of rules about aerial warfare. It did not become an international convention, yet great weight should be attached to that code on account of its authors. Article 22 reads: ‘Aerial bombardment for the purpose of terrorizing the civilian population, of destroying or damaging private property not of military character, or of injuring non-combatants is prohibited.’ Article 24 says: ‘ Aerial bombardment is legitimate only when directed at a military objective—that is to say, an objective of which the destruction or injury would constitute a distinct military advantage to the belligerent.’ Professor A. L. Goodhart, of Oxford, states: ‘Both these Articles are based on the fundamental assumption that direct attack on non-combatants is an unjustifiable act of war.’