AIR SERVICE.

HC Deb 12 February 1910 vol 112 cc219-38

Captain WEDGWOOD BENN

I rise to move, at the end of the Address, to add the words, But humbly regrets that no assurance is given that the merging of the Air Ministry and the War Office under one head is but a temporary measure of convenience, inasmuch as to disintegrate the Air Service or subordinate it to the other fighting services is detrimental to the Empire's aerial development. This is an Amendment intended to protest the necessity for the unity and independence of the Royal Air Force. The Amendment, you may say, was not put down on the initiative of the Members who are supporting it, but was rather provoked by the action of the Government; because, despite the fact that this House has passed the Air Ministry Act setting up a Secretary of State for the Air who is to be co-equal with the Secretary of State for War and the First Lord of the Admiralty, in the construction of the Government the two offices—the War Office and Air Ministry—have been combined under one head, and in the judgment of those who are supporting this Amendment, which is put down in the names of Members all of whom have been actively engaged during the War in the Royal Air Force, the union of the two offices under one head threatens the unity and independence of the Royal Air Force. It is not necessary that I should explain that this is not an attack either upon the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Under-Secretary of State for War or upon the War Minister, and I can say, speaking for myself, that were he Minister for Air and nothing else there is no one I would rather see in office, nor is there anyone, in my judgment, who has contributed more by energy and imagination to the Service of the Air. What troubles us is that the right hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Churchill) combines the two offices in his person, and it is the very fact that he has such ability and such gigantic energy which makes us uneasy, because, in our judgment, the War Office will come first, and the fact that he will control it with his great ability and energy will necessarily subordinate the interests of the Air Ministry. It is too late in the day for it to be necessary for me to explain the necessity for an Air Ministry independent of the other Services. That has been decided by this House, and it is based upon the unity which exists among all the Air Services in material and on land and water and in the unity of training, because, except in the final stages, there is no difference in the training of a pilot whether he is to fly a seaplane, an observation machine, or a scout. It is not necessary for me to dwell on this point because it has been agreed upon by this House, and it was one of the points in which there was said to be inaction on the part of the first Coalition Government.

In our judgment unless the Air Force is independent it cannot remain united. We consider that on the independence of the Air Force depends entirely the basis on which alone its unity can be preserved. The right hon. Gentleman the Minister for War, who is also the Minister for the Air, will be faced with problems like this. About this time of the year Estimates are being prepared. We know what happens. The Departments ask for much more money than the Cabinet is willing to grant, and there is a general series of interviews and representations, and each Department has to cut the coat according to the cloth. We will suppose that a certain amount of money has been set aside for defence purposes, and that the question is whether that money is to be spent, say, on Cavalry or on aeroplanes. Which side will the right hon. Gentleman take if such a question comes before him? He represents both Services and his position is really impossible. Previously such a question would be settled by reference to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, but the right hon. Gentleman in his dual capacity will find himself at least an embarrassed, if not a partial, judge. There are other matters on which conflict is possible between the Air Ministry and the War Office. I was not present when it took place, but I believe that a year ago there was a dispute between the two Ministries on the question of the medical service. Anybody who has been in the Air Service knows perfectly well that there is a large field for air medical service, and that the problems of a medical service for the air are really quite different and quite specialised, and are not the same as problems of the War Office. The right hon. Gentleman probably agrees with me that there is a case for a separate air medical service. In any case a pledge was given on the subject, and why was it not done during the War? It was not done because the War Office would not agree, although very distinguished medical experts in this House pressed for it, and a compromise had to be arrived at in deference to the wishes of the War Office. If that problem arises again, and the conflict arises again, which side is the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War and Air going to take? But I do not base the case against War Office control of the air even on a matter like that, and on matters like that, which could be elaborated indefinitely. I say that the whole Army point of view on air subjects is unsound. It is not the air point of view. There is such a thing as an air sense, and persons regard the air in the same way as the sailors regard the sea. That air sense you will never get in people trained only on the land. I have observed matters in the Army and the Navy. I know the sort of thing the Army people want. They want spectacular points, such as "How many Huns have been destroyed to-day?" That is really not the fundamental fact in air warfare, and is really ancillary to the real service that the Air Force renders in observation and defence; but the Army point of view is what is in the newspaper, and they want the interesting thing, and they ask, "How many Huns have been destroyed in the course of the day?"

There is also their attitude towards the technical side. The progress of the air, I make so bold to say, depends entirely on mechanics. It is exactly in the same state as when the Navy changed from sail to engines. The Army point of view never gives proper weight to the mechanical side, and to constant improvement in mechanism, by which alone progress can be made. I have ventured to point out some of the conflicts that may come before the right hon. Gentleman, and some of the ways in which his heart may be torn in his dual capacity as Minister for War and Air. What about the naval side? It was only with the very greatest difficulty that the Air Ministry was formed to include the machines which were under the orders of the Navy. Now there is a very great suspicion in naval circles of the union even to-day. Many of the men on the naval side of the Royal Air Force have been in the Navy. Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that they would be a little suspicious when they found that their promotions or rewards had to be decided by the Secretary of State for War? It may be said that these matters of promotions and ribbons are small matters, but soldiers and sailors do not work for money. They work for honour, and they think a great deal of those things. I think the man in the Navy who renders service in the air would be rightly suspicious if he found that such matters have got to be decided by the War Office. In my judgment, when the union took place some mistakes were made. The naval flyers were put into the united Air Force and the titles selected for thorn were military. I do not think that was necessary, and I think it was a mistake, because I do not think the military titles, such as colonel, captain, and brigadier, are in the least applicable to the Flying Force. I think it would have been better to select naval titles if the question was one between the Army and Navy, but I do not see why you should not have special terms for the Air Service. The very existence of these titles fosters the separatist spirit which exists in the naval part of the Air Service to-day. Then there is the question of discipline. Discipline in the Air Force was based upon discipline in the Army, and in my judgment that was a mistake also. Of course, during the War Acts had to be adopted holus-bolus, because there was no time to go into details, but I do not think that the discipline which is suitable for the Army is necessarily the type of discipline suitable for the Air Service. Personally, I think the Army discipline and the whole penal code in the Army wants revision, and I think its punishments and its ideas are mediæval, archaic, and ineffective, and they are certainly not suited to the peculiar psych- ology of the airmen. What happens? A number of flying men are in a ship. Even when they were Royal Naval Air Service men there was never that knitting together between them and the ship's company as there was between the whole company itself, and when they became Royal Air Force men the feeling of division became more acute still. The captain of the ship, who exercised a very complete and rather paternal control over the whole ship's company, resented having on board a number of people in a uniform that he did not recognise and subject to a discipline that he did not understand and strongly suspected. That caused a desire for separation, and that desire, I think would be very greatly increased by the knowledge that those men were under the control of a Minister whose first charge he would suppose must necessarily be the War Office, and not the Air Ministry. Demobilisation is now taking place

10.0 P.M.

The Air officers consist of people, some of whom were soldiers and others sailors before joining the Air Force, while others still entered directly. It is among these that you have the best chance of fostering the real esprit de corps of the Air Force, but these are the very people who are being demobilised first, and you have as a result a tendency already setup to leave in the higher positions of the Service the very men whose desire to get away from one another and to get back again to their first love, either the Army or the Navy. You get the sort of thing which, in my opinion, is the worst possible thing for the Air Force, and that is men who do not know whether they are going to succeed in the air or whether they will not go back to the Artillery, or to their old ship; and if you have men whose interest is divided you never can get that wholehearted support and enthusiasm and real esprit de corps which must be the basis of success in aviation in the future. I dare say the right hon. Gentleman will explain either that this is a purely temporary arrangement—if it is we must accept it as such, but we should like to know how long it will last—or he may say that it is a step in the direction of the co-ordination of the three Services and of the creation of a Ministry of Defence. Perhaps his filial piety causes his mind to turn back thirty years to when Lord Randolph Churchill presented a memorandum suggesting a Minister of Defence, who should combine both the Navy and the Army under his control. But I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that one of the reasons why that very scheme was turned down by one of the strongest Committees that ever sat on Defence, of which Lord Sydenham was secretary, was because the Navy could not be convinced that under such a scheme it was not going to get the worst of it. If that was well founded then, how much more true would it be for the Air Force to be suspicious, being the youngest of all, that she was not going to get an equal position with the older Services under such a scheme? I suppose that what will really happen will be, not that there will be one Minister in charge of the three Services, but that our defences will be governed by some Committee partaking of the character of the Imperial Defence Committee or the War Cabinet. We are, therefore, entitled to ask what will be the exact functions of the Air Ministry under such a Committee, and whether this present plan of uniting the two under the control of one right hon. Gentleman is going to assist a successful arrangement of that, kind? During the War the smallest part of the work of the Air Force has been done by the Independent Air Force, which is the part which operates not under the orders of either the Army or the Navy. In my opinion, and I think my hon. and gallant Friends who support me in this Amendment will agree, that Force will have the greatest part of the work to do in the future. There will be a punitive expedition, perhaps, or there may be police work to be done in the way of a force to be put at the disposal of a League of Nations in order to enforce its decisions. This will be partaking of the character of the work of the Independent Air Force. In the particular part of the theatre of war in which I was employed some years ago a great deal could have been done if there had been an effective Independent Air Force. I mean against Turkey. The whole of the Turkish coast line was exposed, but there was absolutely no organisation of the Air Force to enable us to attack it. Hon. Gentlemen may remember that the Bagdad Railway passes the Gulf of Alexandretta at a point only 15 miles from the coast, perfectly flat land over which it is quite easy to fly, as we did repeatedly, but we had no organisation of machines to enable us to blow up the railway, which crosses two rivers by bridges 130 metres wide, I think, if I remember rightly—a single line. That railway could undoubtedly have been destroyed if we had had the material to do it, and that would have meant isolating the forces of the Turks in the East from their headquarters in Asia Minor. Then there is the case of the Hedjas. As hon. Membersremember, the Turks for a long time kept a garrison at Medina, from which a single line of railway runs through the desert to the north. If we had had a sufficient and properly organised Independent Air Force, there is not the least doubt that that line could have been cut repeatedly, the garrison of Medina forced to surrender, and the King of the Hedjas would have had his victory months, and perhaps a year, sooner than he had. As it was, the capture of Jeddah was a decisive military action by air. The place was bombed and the Turks surrendered without any land force being required at all, which is an instance of a decisive action by air. At Aden there was a man with a force some twenty-five miles inland and no one would attack him because it was too hot. It was simply the heat of the desert which protected him. If we had lad an effective Independent Air Force he would have been wiped out. That is the sort of thing which will happen in future. It is one of the things that the Air Force will have to undertake on the military side.

Then there is the civilian side, which is far more important. These are some of the commonplaces of their work—licensing aircraft, certifying pilots, regulating patrols, laying down international law, and so on, as well as a great deal of pioneer work. The aircraft industry is, of course, at a very critical point. It has lost, or is losing, its best customer. The War having ceased, the best customer is cutting down its orders, and it is not a time when the industry can afford to do the necessary pioneer work. And yet a great deal of pioneer work has got to be done. The sort of work that the Air Ministry will do, I suppose, is something of this kind: The air must be policed. You must, prevent smuggling—a big job. You may both find and signal distressed vessels. A great deal of the work done by coastguards could certainly be done by aircraft. The air patrols would see a vessel in distress and might bring it succour, and certainly bring back news so that assistance could be rendered. Then there are expeditions. An expedition already is fitting out in America and taking aircraft to explore the Northern regions. Undoubtedly there is the use of aircraft for the production of rain by a discharge of electric currents between aircraft in the clouds. There is the whole arrangement of codes and signals in the air. Nothing could be more grotesque than the present arrangements by which a signal is made in a naval code and made into the military code. I have known a message take eight hours, though the actual message was sent in as many seconds from one place to another. All that has to be arranged by the Air Ministry. Then there is the whole question of the navigation of the air. You must have charts showing the speed of winds at different heights. There is also the question of telling aircraft which are lost their position by means of wireless telegraphy. Then there is the provision of lighthouses, and all sorts of signals in fog.

All this sort of work has got to be done by the Air Ministry, and the question we have to ask is: Is a proper foundation for this sort of work being prepared by the association of the Air Ministry with the War Office? It is perfectly obvious from the enumerations I have given of the purposes of the Air Ministry that no good thing can possibly come by associating this great, live, progressive Service with the War Office. As a matter of fact, it is much more akin to Admiralty work. But I should have been the very last, having served in the Royal Naval Air Service when under Admiralty control, to recommend that the Service should be put under the command of the Admiralty. I am not speaking of the regimé of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Churchill) at the Admiralty. I only wish I had been serving when he was fit the Admiralty. Rather than the War Office or Admiralty, I would see a civilian element introduced in the Air Ministry so as to be in touch with all the genius of civilian energy that has done so much to give us the mastery of the air we enjoy at the present moment. The Royal Air Force can look back without shame on the records of the lass four years. It can look forward to an unparalleled opportunity of service in the cause of humanity. That, in my judgment, depends entirely on the preservation of its unity and its independence.

Colonel MOORE-BRABAZON

I rise, with a certain amount of nervousness, for the first time in this House to make my maiden speech, but I am reassured somewhat by Members who have told me that even those Gentlemen who speak on the Front Bench have not always distinguished themselves by their maiden speech. My own case, I think, is a little different from other Members of this House, because I stand for the Chatham Division of Rochester, where there is situated a very big manufactory of aircraft, so that the question of aeronautics and aviation played a more prominent part there than perhaps in other constituencies. Consequently, after they have placed their confidence in me and elected me, the first thing I find is that the Government have introduced a measure for an arrangement of offices which is so much against what we understood in the past that I have, even at this early time, and much against my will, to raise my voice in protest. I have been told that the House will lend its ear to a Member who knows his subject. Some fourteen years' intimacy with aeronautics having given me knowledge, I look round and hope that I may be accorded that ear. I divide that fourteen years into three periods. I am here now again as a civilian. There was a time when I was a civilian. There was a time when I was a soldier—or an airman—and there was a time when I was at the Air Ministry. I do not know under what class that occupation would come. Anyhow, the whole history of aviation in this country is so short that I have not to appear in this House with grey hair or a long beard to show that I have been associated with it from the start. I want, if I can, to convey to this House how in all that time the spirit of opposition from those great offices, like the War Office and the Admiralty, has been dominant.

In the very early days of aviation, in 1911, certain members of the Aero Club were so impressed with the possibilities of aircraft from a purely military point of view that they arranged a deputation to the War Office, and made an offer to the War Office to provide two aeroplanes, with the pilots and all the necessary paraphernalia, so that the aeroplanes might be tried during the Army manœuvres of that year. I formed one of that deputation. I approached, I must say, the building with some confidence. After being kept waiting three-quarters of an hour we were told that the aeroplanes were not wanted for war purposes, that no one could see any use for them. That was the sort of encouragement one got in those days. Lest, however, the Admiralty should think that they are less blameworthy, let me tell the House that the Aero Club again had to teach the first four naval pilots. These were taught by private members of the club because no action would be taken by the Navy in the matter.

I want to skip from that time to the War. When the War came on there was a Flying Corps, a small one, I admit, but already the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for War had, for the best purpose, I do admit—still he had done it—taken a part of the original Flying Corps and had turned it into the Royal Naval Air Service. I know his intentions were of the very best, but so many great mistakes are made under those circumstances. It is popularly supposed that the Flying Corps and the Air Services during the War were welcomed by everybody at the front. Such, I assure hon. Members, was not at all the case. First of all, the thing was not in the book. And recognisances, the most elementary, of course, of all the uses of aircraft, were not in any way believed in. Then we got a little further. When trench warfare began we went in for photography, and we produced all sorts of photographs. We tried to get the people to accept them. They said they were very pretty but they did not see any use for them. We had as a Flying Corps actually to start to make maps before the Army would make them. There was a lieutenant-colonel, now a famous general, who carried in his pocket a pocketful of photographs. After every interview he used—like a commercial traveller—to produce one and say, "You must have one of these; you will find them very useful." Then, again, I want to show hon. Members another instance of opposition from the Army mind—that is in regard to Artillery. It is well known that very gunner thinks he knows exactly where his shot goes. That is one of those popular fallacies one cannot dispel. The Royal Flying Corps did their very best to help them to correct their shots. Yet it was not until we actually showed the marks made by the shells, by photographs, that they were practically forced to use aeroplanes for firing heavy guns. On that matter I remember well an officer, who was killed, flying over Ypres salient and sending back by wireless a curious message that, if anyone is firing at the centre of the lake, whose name he gave, he is hitting it.

Do not let the Navy think that they are not to blame. We are told in the papers every day to remember the Dover patrol. I very much remember it in the early days of the War. It will be remembered that the Navy were in charge of that stretch of coast. They allowed to be built up there an enormous enemy artillery which never ought to have been allowed for one moment to exist. It never would have existed if aircraft had only been used as is should have been. Instead of that, the most antiquated methods were adopted by the Admiralty. They brought up huge constructions, dropped them in the sea, and put a man upon them; and he was asked to observe the fall of the shots behind a hill which he really could not see. While there were squadrons at Dunkirk dying to do the work. I bring forward these points to show the constant opposition there is to anything new, and we have never got, over that even to this day. After seeing what opposition there was to the R.N.A.S. there was naturally a feeling between the two Services to get together to be allowed to do their work. When the R.N.A.S. was formed that was a red-letter day in aviation, because it was the declaration of independence of a new Service. If one can make a simile, the egg of aviation was cracked and out came the chick. What plumage it was to take on we did not know, but the plumage turned out somewhat heterogeneous. A few of us here believe in the future of aviation, and we want to know whether the Government do. We want to know what the arrangement is and whether it is permanent or not. If it is simply to help demobilisation let us be told so. Perhaps the Government have taken it into their heads to start some aviation experiment on their own. Had the present arrangement been reversed, and had there been a Secretary of State for Air and an Under-Secretary of State for War, that would at least have shown that the Government saw what things were coming to, because although the Air Service is going to be very expensive it is in many ways going to save the State money.

The whole outlook in different parts of the Empire must change. For instance, a squadron will do all the work of several garrisons in India, but if you keep your two Ministries together, and if the Secre- tary of State for War is to take the advice of soldiers, is it not within the bounds of possibility that there will come up from the soldiers a recommendation to eliminate themselves in favour of another Service? This arrangement has already started almost an agitation for the old Royal Naval Air Service. I do not know very much about the organisation of the Admiralty, and it has always been somewhat of a mystery to me that they have been able to produce any thing more than a trireme, but the Navy have some grievances in the master of Royal Air Force officers on board their ships. The future of the Air Service can be rather likened to the Admiralty and the Navy in which a fundamental training is the same, but in which at the end the different officers choose the separate branch of the Service into which they would like to go, as, for instance, submarine, mining, navigating officer, or gunner. In the Air Service it would not be difficult to arrange some form of regiments or corps, one of which would be devoted, say, to the naval side, one to the military side, one to pure bombing, one to pure fighting, and one to the offensive against troops. That is a thing that can easily be done. It only requires a little organisation and a little imagination.

We now come to the commercial side of aviation. Of course, an enormous amount of nonsense has been written about this by people who know very little about it, but I am glad to think that the Indian rope trick has taken precedence in the literary field for the moment. I think we can compare the future of aviation a little with motoring. We find to-day in motoring that taxation is heavier and legislation is more oppressive in this country than in any other civilised country in the world, and we must remember that motoring never started only in the hands of the Government. The whole of the future of aeronautics now rests in the hands of the Government. That is an awful thought. The first thing that we want is to release all flying. We want flying permitted in this country apart from Government machines. Already there is a trend for designs to go different ways. The war machine and the commercial machine are very different things, and the designs are going in absolutely opposite directions. Up to quite recently no firm was allowed oven to build an aeroplane which was not approved by the technical side of the Air Ministry. I am going to touch a little on that last year of mine which I spent in the AirMinistry. I want to show the House the enormous rise of militarism therein. The Air Ministry was fuller of generals than any other building in England. Even to-day the civil direction of aviation is run by a general. There is scarcely a department which is not run by a general, and where we did expect a civilian politician at the head we find a major-general. There is at this moment a demobilisation going on in the Air Ministry which I regard with very great alarm. The Air Service, as it was at the end of the War, was composed of civilians who had come into that force and a few Regular officers. Those civilians, who were the blood of that Service, are going out every day, and there are being left there nothing but old Regular officers. You cannot change the spots of a leopard. Most of those at the head of Departments were generals, and were Staff officers in the War Office, and that is their spiritual home to-day. Never did the future of a great movement, a new age almost, depend upon careful organisation atone particular time more than aviation depends upon it now. Through this War, with the united efforts of all manufacturers, and with our wonderful flying officers, we have got to the top of the tree. We must keep there. We cannot, by lethargy and by trying to run the thing on a military line when it must be run on a civilian basis, jeopardise the position we have won. There is one bright spot, and that is the personality of the Secretary of State for Air. He does enjoy the confidence of most people interested in the air. He has imagination, and I believe he has the movement at heart. He has started by shaking a little of our confidence, but if he can in any way restore that, he will find in our little committee the greatest help, because we are out to show that not only is the sea His Majesty's ocean, but that the air is His Majesty's also.

The SECRETARY of STATE for WAR (Mr. Churchill)

We have listened to two very pleasant speeches, and I do not think we could wish for anything better than that speeches of that kind should be the characteristics of the new House of Commons, because they were both delivered by men who, with long study and considerable achievement, have made themselves masters of the subject with which they have dealt. They were characterised not only by knowledge but by earnestness. Everyone is delighted to see my hon. and gallant Friend (Captain Benn), fresh from his victories in the air and at the polls, speaking for the first time from the Front Opposition Bench, and those who are acquainted with the mystery of the birth and growth of our aviation Services know what a help the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Brabazon) has been. I believe his ticket as an air pilot is actually No. 1—and what a claim he has, not only from his service as a flying officer and a pioneer of that development, but as a pioneer in aerial photography! Every one would recognise and admit his claims to the attention of the House on such an occasion. I am, however, called upon not simply to pay compliments, but to define the policy of the Government on a Motion which, if it were successful, would entail a change of Government.

The Prime Minister is responsible for the decisions which have led to the present arrangement, and in ordinary circumstances he would have been here this evening to reply to the speeches which have been made, but he has already addressed the House yesterday and again, to-day, and I believe will speak on the Amendment to-morrow. Therefore it falls to me to defend my own qualifications for this double office in his absence and to do the best I can to repeat, to the House the arguments which I understand actuated him in arriving at that decision. My right hon. Friend, I know, had first of all in his mind a great wish not to multiply unduly the offices of the Government. In various directions it is necessary to create new offices, and as far as possible he wished to reduce the scale of the Parliamentary staff by which the Government is carried on. Although the Air Service is an arm which will acquire increasing importance as the years go by, there is no doubt that after the demobilisation is complete, the size of the Air Service compared with either the Army or the Navy will be very much smaller; and it was not considered by the Prime Minister at the present period in aviation development that a separate Secretaryship of State was required for the administration of the Air Service.

In the second place, we are confronted at present with the great operation of demobilisation, which affects the Army and the Air Service in very similar ways though not absolutely identical, and which affects them in ways different from those in which the Navy is affected. The Navy has only been expanded two and a half times; the Air Service has sprung into existence, and the Army has been multiplied by ten. This makes the shrinkages which have to be made in the Air Service and the Army involve decisions in regard to pay conditions, and Regulations governing the transition of men from military to civil life, which I say, without hesitation, can far better be taken in regard to those two kindred Services if they are taken from a common point of view, and if the two Departments can be made to march in step, and not overthrow the policy of the one by separate or independent action on the part of the other. Therefore it is specially in regard to the period of demobilisation that I make this point.

When demobilisation is complete, another important task will lie before us. We shall have to redistribute the garrisons of the British Empire in the light of the lessons we have learned in the War, and in view of the fact that a new element—a new arm—has come into the military category, and though we must not anticipate the decisions of the Peace Conference, that our military responsibilities, particularly in the East, may be somewhat enlarged. If you are to have the highest amount of military power developed with the least possible cost, you have to redistribute your garrisons, with the air and military forces harmoniously interspersed, and disposed about the Empire. There are good reasons why an effective arrangement of squadrons, all working from powerful well-established bases, could be held with a minimum of expense and difficulty and the greatest amount of security, whereas without that aerial development very large forces of Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery would require to be maintained at the greatest possible expense. It is the harmonious interweaving of the Air Force with the Army in the redistribution of the military forces, and in the redistribution of our overseas garrisons that the hope of our discharging the great tasks which lie before us, without an undue burden upon the public Exchequer, mainly lies. That redistribution can far better be made if it be made from one point of view and if the two Services which are primarily concerned walk together in step, and are not competitive rivals in the field. Therefore, I say that, at any rate at present and in the future—the immediate future—there is special reason why the Air and the Military Secretaryships of State should be directed from a common standpoint.

But I should like to assure my hon. friends that in the meantime, without prejudice to anything that may or may not be done in the future, the integrity, the unity, the independence of the Royal Air Force will be sedulously and carefully maintained. There is not the slightest intention of merging them in the Army, of merging the administration of the Royal Air Force in the War Office, of subordinating it to the War Office, or of derogating from its separate, independent state as a Royal Air Force. I have done my best on every opportunity which has so far fallen in my way to make that perfectly plain, and if at any time another arrangement be thought preferable, and the needs which make this present arrangement appropriate are no longer in existence, the Air Force will be found to have been so conducted and so managed that it could immediately undertake an independent existence with my right hon. Friend (General Seely) as pilot under its own steam, or any other arrangement could be made which would enable the offices to be divided. There is no question whatever of rupturing the integrity of the Air Force. So far from the Air Force having been disintegrated by what has taken place since the present Government was formed, we have enlarged our scope. The manufacturing and production departments of the Ministry of Munitions have been handed over to the Air Force. Anyone acquainted with the importance of these departments will realise what an accession that has been to the substance and strength of the air organisation. Instead of civilian aviation being split up between all the different Departments—the Board of Trade, the Foreign Office, or whatever it may be—as some people had suggested, it will now be definitely placed in the sphere of the Air Ministry.

I am very glad indeed that General Sykes has been induced to take charge of this most important and growing branch of aviation. If you are to choose the head of a civil branch of aviation, your choice is limited to two classes of men. You must either choose a Service man or an aircraft manufacturer, and while I recognise to the full the services which the aircraft manufacturers have rendered there can be no doubt that a Service man of distinction is to be preferred, and for this reason: Whichever great head of an aircraft factory you choose to develop civil aviation for the Government you would certainly engender in the breasts of all his rivals and competitors in the trade a feeling of great insecurity and suspicion that would undoubtedly dog his steps. But General Sykes has most patriotically consented to retire from the military profession, and to take civilian garb, in order to emphasise the civilian character of this Department, and to devote his great abilities to developing to the utmost, as far as it lies in the province of the Government, to the progress of civil and commercial aviation. We have already taken preliminary steps to introduce a Bill to the House to enable us to get private flying started, at first under Regulations, which at a later date can be greatly relaxed, and I trust that, progress will be made in that sphere.

My hon. Friend opposite drew a picture of quarrels between the Air Office and the War Office, in which the Air Office would always be the sufferer. I am not quite sure that that is a picture which carried conviction to his own mind. At any rate, I can promise him that there will be very few quarrels between the heads of those two Departments. That, at any rate, is an assurance which I can give him. Whether that will completely reconcile him to the arrangement I cannot tell. But there is another step he recommended which I think it right and proper to take. In order to emphasise the distinction between the Air Force and the two parent Services, it is necessary that the titles and ranks of the officers should be different from those which are employed in the two parent Services. There is no topic which gives rise to more fertile and provoking discussion than the invention or titles and styles, and therefore I will not venture to submit to the House at present any of those which we have in mind, but I am glad to say that General Trenchard, who has resumed his post in the Royal Air Force, is confident that a good scheme of perfectly distinctive titles can be devised, from which it will be seen that so far from the Royal Air Force being merged in the War Office, it has, in fact, taken notable steps towards emphasising its own independent characteristics.

I should like to point out to those in this House who are very much interested in aviation that at the present stage much harm may easily be done by over-estimating its capacity and capability. The hon. Gentleman who spoke drew attention to the extravagant estimates which are set about in the newspapers as to the immediate possibilities of commercial aviation. Generally, we shall not help to forward this cause if we begin by teaching the public to expect from it all sorts of performances which, although they are now within view, are certainly not yet within reach. The Air Force must neglect nothing that can add to its body and its substance. We want everything that the technical departments and the production processes can give us. We want everything we can get from the Navy and from the Army. We want everything we can procure from our own unaided effort.

The officers of the Air Force must be drawn from three sources. There must be Air Force officers of permanent commission, but there must also be Army and Navy officers who are seconded—who will come in and do three or four years of flying, and then go back to the parent Services—teaching the parent forces what the air is worth and what it can do for them; and then, perhaps, some of them will come back at a later date as Staff officers or in command. Unless you have that process, you will not be able to make a fair proportion between the lower ranks of the Service and the higher ranks which are open to the legitimate aspirations of those embarking on the career. Unless you have a proper proportion between the higher posts at the top of the Service and the young men who enter at the bottom, you will find that you will not get that class which is absolutely necessary if the high tone of the Service is to be maintained—that class of efficient young men of enterprise and daring who are indispensable to the force. Every profession must have its proper proportion. I have been getting out statistics to see how many curates there are to every archbishop, how many sub-lieutenants to every admiral, how many lieutenants to every field-marshal, and so on. In the Air Force we have the same great disproportion of the young officers of the flying age, and unless you can derive from the two other parent forces something that will take this off, so that they will look to their own Services for their final advancement, you will find it very difficult to provide a reasonable share of advancement and promotion for those who have to enter on this profession. I have, I hope, done something if not to reassure my hon. Friend, at any rate to placate him.

There is only one more word which I can say before I sit down, mid I say it because the Prime Minister specially referred to it when instructing me on the subject. Reference has been made by both speakers to what is called the Ministry of Defence. There can be no Ministry of Defence, however good that may be in theory and as an ultimate ideal, actually there can be no Ministry of Defence until you have created a staff of extra-officers who have grown up year after year having studied the question of war and the defence of the Empire from the general point of view, and unless that staff have gradually gained the confidence of their respective branches and are familiar with all the branches. You have to build up a great body of combined war thought, capable of producing professional, expert leaders to advise the Government, not from an Army point of view or a Navy point of view, but generally over the whole field of war. Until you possess that body of officers, believe me, it is idle to speculate on the possibilities of a Ministry of Defence. That is a task which certainly cannot be a complished and achieved until not merely the officers have been trained, but have grown up and are in such a position, in their respective Services as will entitle them to the confidence of their comrades and their profession. It is a matter of a good many years work. However, nothing in what has been done in the association of the Air Force and the Army under the conditions I have specified, with entirely separate offices, is inconsistent in any way with that ideal, if it be thought to be possible. It may be said that two-thirds of the road has already been covered. I end as I began, by thanking both the Mover and the Seconder for the kindly terms in which they have expressed their differences, and I trust that in the few words which the House has allowed me to address to it on the subject I have done something to remove their objections, or, at any rate, to diminish their hostility.

Lord HUGH CECIL

While I am glad to recognise the very conciliatory tone of my right hon. Friend's speech, I must say I do not think he convinced me by any of his arguments—if arguments they can be called—that the arrangement suggested is a wise one. It appears that the Government are anxious to save the difference in the salary between an Under-Secretary of State and a Secretary of State. Does my right hon. Friend think it worth while to put forward an argument of that kind in the House of Commons at this time of day? Then we are told it is necessary that the Air Force and War Office should work together in respect of demobilisation and other matters. Is my right hon. Friend so indocile that unless he was a subordinate official he would find it impossible to work with him, and disagreement would be inevitable? These arguments only inspire distrust and create the impression that something is being attempted which the Government date not avow. They are protesting it is essential that the War Office should be over the Air Force which is the very thing we want to avoid. Surely my right hon. friend can see it is absolutely essential for the efficiency of the Air Service that it should be entirely detached from the control of the War Office. Experience has shown us that wherever the War Office has intruded its fingers there has followed inefficiency and disaster. As long as the War Office had anything to do with the Air Service it had a mischievous effect, and nothing could be more likely to imperil the future and efficiency of the Air Service than any return to the arrangement adopted in the past. I merely want to enter a protest in case my right hon. Friend thought his explanation was a satisfactory one.

Captain BENN

In view of what the right hon. Gentleman has said, and after consultation with my hon. and gallant Friends, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Main Question again proposed.

Motion made, and Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned," put, and agreed to.—[Mr. Brace.]

Debate to be resumed To-morrow.

Whereupon MR. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of this day, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at One Minute after Eleven o'clock.