§ Mr. A. J. BALFOURasked the Prime Minister whether he can state the nature of the duties entrusted to the scientific Committee on Aerial Navigation, and explain the relation of the Committee to the executive officers who are understood to be designing balloons and aeroplanes for naval and military purposes?
§ The PRIME MINISTERIt is no part of the general duty of the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics either to construct or to invent. Its function is not to initiate, but to consider what is initiated elsewhere, and is referred to it by the executive officers of the Navy and Army Construction Departments. The problems which are likely to arise in this way for solution are numerous, and it will be the work of the Committee to advise on these problems, and to seek their solution by the application of both theoretical and experimental methods of research.