AIR BOARD

HC Deb 26 April 1917 vol 92 cc2674-704

Question again proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £1,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1918, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Air Board."

Mr. TENNANT (resuming)

I was interrupted in my flight, which is not a very high soar. The hon. Member for Brent-ford has given us the percentage of accidents, and the numbers of the various types of machines which are used at the front. I still hope that some time we may be informed in regard to the relatively small proportion of efficient machines.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS

I did not say efficient machines. I was dealing with machines stated to be our best machines, and better than the best German.

Mr. TENNANT

I am obliged for that correction, and I did not desire to misinterpret my hon. Friend's remarks. The machines referred to are known by the letter "X," and my hon. Friend gave a description of how even on those machines four casualties occurred out of six. Previously he informed the Committee that the casualties were attributable almost entirely to the comparatively low velocity of the machines employed, and yet when the high velocity machines are sent up no less than four out of six had casualties. In so dangerous an occupation as that of flying in war-time you cannot attribute all the casualties to the type of machine which is being used, because flying is always a most hazardous and dangerous occupation. I wish to say a word about the B 2C. I doubt whether this is such an obsolete machine as my hon. Friend seems to think. I want to see improvements made, but the B 20 has some great qualities. It has stability, it is comparatively easy to learn, and it is the custom to use these machines at definite times and for definite purposes, and they are generally accompanied by faster fighting machines.

One other word as to the danger. In a hostile country, where you cannot make convenient landings, flying in a very fast machine is much more dangerous than a slower one. Even our own aerodromes behind the lines are very small, and it is exceedingly difficult to land a fast machine on a small area. We know the existing state of affairs in France, where the ground has been so pounded by artillery that shell holes are so numerous that landing is a sheer impossibility. I intervened in this Debate partly to pay my respectful congratulations to my hon. and gallant Friend, and also in the hope that we may by judicious criticism and helpful observation be of some assistance to the Air Board in providing for this most wonderful service. I yield to no man in my admiration of the Air Services, and one almost stands aghast at their wonderful achievements. I only trust that my hon. and gallant Friend in the strenuous work he is putting in may have a great success in providing a splendid service and the most efficient machines.

Captain BURGOYNE

I do not know whether hon. Members have such intense faith in the Air Board that they do not wish to hear these matters discussed, or whether it is that this being a great national question it does not appeal to them as much as some of those questions of much less importance. I have too much personal vanity to think that the absence of hon. Members is due to the fact that it has been my good fortune to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, at this particular moment. I wish to congratulate the Parliamentary Secretary on the survey that he has given of the situation in the air at the present time, and upon his definition of the policy of the Air Board, of which he is not the least distinguished member. The newest of our Services has for too long been the Cinderella of our Government Departments, and those of us who have taken an interest in the matter have not only rather begun to despair, but at the same time they have been a little suspicious as to what was going on behind the scenes. To-day the Parliamentary Secretary has very kindly lifted one corner of the curtain, and we are enabled to see that if the progress that is being made under the auspices of the new Board is not all that we would wish, at all events something is being done.

I am bound to admit, after listening to the hon. and gallant Member's description of the function of the Board and the work it is throwing on to its various members, that I am afraid it is getting a little too complex. Of course, that is a problem which the future alone can decide. I do not wish to follow the Chairman of the Parliamentary Air Committee on those lines at all, but I want to deal with the Royal Aircraft Factory. That factory has got a very bad name in this House, and I do not think it has altogether been deserved. I regard the Royal Aircraft Factory as the cradle of the Royal Flying Corps. From the efforts made there in the initial days have sprung very nearly all the successes which have been obtained up to the present time. Not only that, but it deserves a position of greater importance, because it is the only Government air dockyard in existence; and, even if it does not develop to a much greater size, it will be the first of a large number of similar institutions mainly on the lines of the dockyards provided for the Navy at the present time. I hope the Committee will bear with me while I deal with the Royal Aircraft Factory during two different periods.

I want to take, first of all, a period from the time when the first design of the first stable machine was framed up to the outbreak of war; and, secondly, a period from the outbreak of war up to the present time. I am doing this for this specific reason—to show that there is some contradiction of policy in regard to an institution which ought to be one of the great standbys of the Air Service. My hon. and gallant Friend will recollect that about 1910 the officials of the Royal Aircraft Factory, under a most able superintendent, decided, after a most careful investigation, that a tractor biplane was the most suitable for military work; and in 1911 the plans were published of the machine which subsequently got known as the B.E. 1, which, I believe, means the Bleriot Experimental. The engine was not found to be satisfactory. It was an old engine taken out of a smashed Bleriot, and it was replaced with the 60 horsepower engine, and this became the B.E. 2. At that time the Royal Aircraft Factory was doing precisely that for which it was intended: that is, experimental work of the very highest kind. Minor alterations were made in the general design of that now aged biplane, and with those alterations came the B. E. 2 A. In this machine the pilot considered that he was not quite as comfortable as he ought to be, and the body was made narrower in order to give greater protection. This was the B. E. 2 B. In 1912 the Secretary of State offered a prize to all comers for the best machines, and the trials took place in August, 1912. The date is significant, for it is two years before the War broke out. The trials took place, and out of thirty-one machines tested, the latest Cody machine came out on top. When they had secured in this way the best machine, they tested it with their B.E. 2B. against it, and it beat the Cody machine on every single ground, and at once a colossal order for twelve of these machines was given.

I will now leave machines and see what the Royal Aircraft Factory in its halcyon days was doing in the matter of engines. Engines then, as now, were the controlling factor in aircraft, and they were astonishingly bad. Early in 1912 the Royal Aircraft Factory asked for a grant to design and build an engine, but the War Office turned it down, as they frequently turned down things which were new and which the old men there did not understand. Nevertheless, the Secretary of State took it upon himself to order on 14th October, 1912, an engine to the design of the Royal Aircraft Factory, and on 13th December of that year a grant was forthcoming, and the outcome of that was the 90 horsepower R.A.F. In 1913 both the Admiralty and the War Office decided that they wanted something good in the way of engines, and so a large prize of £5,000 was offered for the best engine, but the one that gained a prize was found to be impracticable in actual service, and again the 90 horse-power R.A.F. came out on top and it was installed in the old B. E. 2 B.

I will carry this history a little bit further. All this time the Royal Aircraft Factory was doing precisely the work for which it had been established. In the following summer Mr. E. T. Busk, the head of the research side of the Royal Aircraft Factory, told the superintendent that he thought he had a design for a stable machine which would also be easy of control, and in the Estimates for 1914 £5,000 was put down for an aeroplane to be flown without the use of a control. The War Office struck out the item. I am glad to have an opportunity of bringing these facts before the Committee so that the absurdity of the administration of the War Office with regard to the Experimental Department of the Air Service may go down on record. The superintendent of the Royal Aircraft Factory fetched out the old B.E. 2 B, pulled it to pieces, repainted it and redesigned it, and it emerged as B.E. 2 C. We have been talking about the B.E. 2 C to-day. That was the first inherently stable machine. It was completed two months before the outbreak of the War, and when the War came upon us the only effective machines we had to send to France were sixty at the maximum to fight some 1,300 of the Germans. If there had been official authority to carry on experiments with the speed with which they should have been carried on, we had every opportunity of preparing a really first-class design of stable machine, whereas we had to take the old B.E. 1, redesigned several times, worn out with constant exercise, and from it drew up plans which were of very little value, but from which we discovered the stable machine in use at the present time.

Up to the outbreak of War the Royal Aircraft Factory was absolutely fulfilling its job. It was experimenting, and experimenting hard, and it had discovered something that every single nation now engaged in the War would have been glad to have had, and against its work there was official crabbing right from the beginning. I go so far as to say that even with regard to a heighth record which was got out by a young pilot called Spratt, the head of the Air Service himself, Sir David Henderson, said, "You had better give up these record stunts." I put it to the Committee that the job of the Royal Aircraft Factory was to carry out experiments. What happened after War broke out? Hero I hope that I shall have the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary, because I am going to deal with the Royal Aircraft Factory upon rather different lines. Subsequent to the outbreak of the War we had, naturally, very largely to extend the staff and the means of production of that factory. Owing to the fact that it was extremely difficult to get hold of men accustomed to aeroplane work, there was a considerable falling off in the efficiency of that work. Furthermore, owing to the fact that we had no proper engines for aeroplane purposes in this country, they looked to this 90 horse-power R.A.F. to provide the initial design of every other engine. We heard all sorts of rumours, committees were appointed, inquiries took place, and in the result the Royal Aircraft Factory got a name which was certainly not very sweet. What did we get as the result of all these inquiries? We got a series of statements defining the exact position that the Royal Aircraft Factory ought to hold in the future. It was founded, as we all know, for purely experimental purposes, and the scientific data from which machines were to be designed were obtained, I understand, from the National Physical Laboratory. At all events, that laboratory worked with the Royal Aircraft Factory. We now come to the first point, as to whether or not the Royal Aircraft Factory at the present time is fulfilling the work set for it in the statements made by the hon. and gallant Gentleman in this House and by his associates on the recent Air Board, with which he was also connected, and other eminent people. The Committee on the administration of the Royal Flying Corps, in their Report of last year, said: We think that the continued existence of the Royal Aircraft Factory is essential. Everybody agrees with that. It is our first aerial dockyard. It should not, in our opinion, become a manufacturing establishment, but should confine itself to the five subjects stated in the Report, namely: (1) Trial and experiment; (2) research; (3) preparation of drawings; (4) repairs; (5) manufacture of spares. It is perfectly well known that the factory-is much more a manufacturing factory than it is devoted to research work. I purpose to read letters and other documents to prove that is so. My argument becomes a little difficult in that I have found the Parliamentary Secretary to the Air Board out in a complete contradiction of statements in his opening remarks. He first said of the Royal Aircraft Factory, "It is being dealt with on precisely the same terms as any other manufacturing firm." He subsequently told us that they were doing exactly as much research work as before. He cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. Neither of these statements can be absolutely right. Then we get the official organ of the Royal Aero Club: Let the Royal Aircraft Factory stick to its original charter—the prosecuting of practical experiments, and, as we have had occasion to point out consistently in past years, it will have all its work cut out to keep this country to the front in the science of the air. Lord Curzon in another place on 1st August last year said: The Government take the view that the main work of the Royal Aircraft Factory— I emphasise the word "main." must continue to be experimental rather than manufacturing. Then we come further still to the Air Committee's Report: No reduction should be made in the amount of experimental work conducted at this factory. Finally, I take the remarks of the hon. and gallant Member himself in the House of Commons on the same day, when he said: The Royal Aircraft Factory is primarily and mainly an experimental establishment.— He added: It is therefore not thought advisable to place the factory under the Ministry of Munitions. What has actually happened? In the first place, the Royal Aircraft Factory has been placed under the Ministry of Munitions.

Major BAIRD

What date is that?

Captain BURGOYNE

1st August last year. I should like to say that I am not greatly concerned whether the Royal Aircraft Factory manufactures or not, but let us get a perfectly clear policy on the subject. The hon. and gallant Member contends that it is doing as much experimental work as in the past. If that is so, it is perfectly obvious you must have a highly technical experimental staff. You cannot carry on as much experimental work of the same useful kind if that staff be constantly changing. The matter was so important that in the Report of the Air Board of 27th July last this appeared: The object to be aimed at in the view of the Air Board is an increase in the output of aeroplanes by an improved organisation of the existing staff. I am a very humble business man, but I know perfectly well that you cannot expect to get the best possible work out of a business if you keep changing your staff. What has been the attitude of the Air Board in regard to the Royal Aircraft Factory? They start by moving—I dare say for very good cause—Colonel O'Gorman from that particular sphere to another sphere where, no doubt, he is doing valuable service, and we get Mr. Fowler put in charge. I have never had the privilege of meeting him, but I am quite sure that Mr. Fowler is a man of very eminent capabilities, but obviously, however eminent and whatever his business capacity, he has got to spend some time getting a grip of that huge business employing nearly 5,000 people. How much further did they go in getting rid of their expert staff? Lieutenant-Colonel Hextall Smith has gone; Major Green has gone after eleven years' service; Captain Hiscocks has left after nine years' service; Captain Whiddington has been removed from the Electrical Research Department, after two years' service; and Mr. Heron has left after valuable service on experimental work. These are all very necessary men. Captain Grinsted, chief officer of Physical Research, after four years' experience, changes his function to that of chief designer. It may be passing through the minds of one or two hon. Members, "Ah, but they were found not fit for their jobs." Every single one of these gentlemen has gone to a very high billet in a private firm. There has been competition to get these men, they are so good. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman is going to tell me, "Ah, but what we have done is to send our people out as scouts in advance so that we get a hold on these private businesses," then we can talk matters over on a different basis; but if he is not going to say that, and obviously no one is going to make such a suggestion, when it would get back to the whole trade, why in the world did he allow the very best men to leave the Royal Aircraft Factory, the only air dockyard that we have got to-day?

What is the programme of the Royal Aircraft Factory for the coming year? We have had strict injunctions not to say anything likely to help the enemy. I do not think in the few speeches that I have made on technical subjects—and they almost always concern something technical—I have been found out in that fault, and I shall endeavour to avoid it now. But even the Air Board have felt a little unhappy as to what they were doing in the matter of policy with regard to the Royal Aircraft Factory. Annually a programme has to be prepared for the purposes of the annual estimates, and on this occasion the programme for the Royal Aircraft Factory ran into many scores of aeroplanes I want to emphasise their discomfort by mentioning the fact that as adjudicators in all these matters they wrote to the General Officer responsible for these orders over the signature "H. P. Harvey," who, I believe, is Secretary of the Air Beard, as follows: The proposed course has the disadvantage of involving a rather large order to the Royal Aircraft Factory, which is contradictory to the assurances which have been given in Parliament. I shall be glad to show the hon. and gallant Gentleman the letter. It was sent to the General Officer from whom you get the programme of the factory for the next year, and it was written on 28th September last year. This General Officer, in whom the entire service as also the Air Board has the utmost confidence, sent an absolutely admirable answer that he was trying to do the very best for the Air Service. This placed my hon. and gallant Friend on the horns of a dilemma, and he has been bound to reverse the policy laid down in this House and by various Committees which have sat upon the Royal Aircraft Factory. The concurrence of the Air Board in the reversal of their policy down there had not been obtained—anyway, up to the end of January this year.

These are naturally private documents, although they are not confidential. I am only going to read one small section of the answer to that letter from the Secretary to the Air Board, because it seems to me to state in very precise language why we should have the Royal Aircraft Factory. It refers to the development of new designs by the construction of the units of so many aeroplane engines a year, and the provision for emergency orders to cover shortcomings by contractors. I now come to a very serious criticism indeed. I do not object in the slightest to the Royal Aircraft Factory building aeroplanes. It is essential that they should do their best to keep our designs right up to the mark, but what is wrong is that they should start the construction of designs which have been sworn to be better than anything turned out by private firms and subsequently, after great expenditure of public money, find that the series has had to be deleted. I would ask the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to this: I am certainly not going to give any names or the numbers of machines, but the types which are to be tested in next year's programme are six, of which it is said: As the performance of all these machines is very much ahead of machines in use now passed, probably these types will, if they are well handled, be serviceable for the whole of next year. Of one of them it was stated—this is interesting— The design should be completed by the 30th January, 1917, and the first machine flying by 14th March. It is considered that this aeroplane might, be safely manufactured at the Royal Aircraft Factory to the number of thirty before the first machines are flown.

Mr. MONTAGU

Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman be good enough to tell us exactly what it is he is reading from? Is it the published Report of the Air Board?

Captain BURGOYNE

No.

Mr. MONTAGU

Is it correspondence between the Air Board and a private firm, or between the Air Board and the Royal Aircraft Factory?

Captain BURGOYNE

I agree that that is a perfectly proper question. These are letters that have been sent to me. They are not letters which arc going to involve anyone, or give, information to the enemy. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman thinks they are going to give information to the enemy, of course I will close down at once.

Major BAIRD

I am quite sure the hon. and gallant Gentleman would never read anything which would give any information to the enemy, but I must say that I am very much surprised at hearing letters read out which, to the beat of my belief, are official letters addressed by the Secretary of the Air Board to another public body. I do not know and do not wish to inquire how the hon. and gallant Gentleman obtained them, but they are undoubtedly offiical documents. I would also point out they are all from the old Air Board. The conditions now are absolutely different. The old Air Board, of which the present Air Board is not a direct lineal descendant—it is quite a new organisation—expressed certain opinions, not in public, with regard to these matters. The constitution of the present Air Board is based on the decision of the Cabinet. Under the constitution of the present Air Board, the Royal Aircraft Factory comes under the Ministry of Munitions, but for the purpose of experiments it works in the closest possible touch with the technical department of the Air Board. I would point out that nothing is to be gained by adverting to a communication between a body which has ceased to exist, in the shape of the old Air Board, and the Royal Aircraft Factory, which in those days was under the direction of the Director of Aeronautical Equipment.

Captain BURGOYNE

I quite agree with what has been said by my hon. and gallant Friend (Major Baird) and the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Montagu), who is quite right in what he says. I would like the Committee to believe that I do not want to do damage in any direction, so I will leave that and come to another side of the matter. I wanted to say something about Cadillac engines. There, again, and this letter is a public one, it is interesting.

Major BAIRD

That again came under the old Air Board. It was by a pure fluke that I happen to have been connected with the old Air Board and the present one. There is really no continuity in any way between the two One was a purely advisory and examining body. The present Board has definite functions.

Mr. MONTAGU

If the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Captain Burgoyne) wishes to discuss in public correspondence conducted by Government Departments, let us by all means unite together to press the Government to publish it, but it is rather a strange and anomalous proceeding that one member of the Committee should quote communications which the House as a whole has not seen.

Captain BURGOYNE

Both my hon. Friends have been very kind about the matter, and their action is quite sufficient to make me turn immediately to another subject. This comes under the aegis of the Parliamentary Secretary, and the facts must be known to tens of thousands. Last week there was a certain number of strikes among wood workers in the aeroplane factories. I have had the names of seven given to me. I am satisfied it was pretty general. The fact remains that they object. Where does the authority of the Air Board come in, and the hon. Gentleman might answer as to what power they have to support the owners or managers of these factories when such strikes take place. This is the situation in a controlled establishment: It is true that the men are employés of the former owners of these establishments. On the other hand, these men are responsible for their work only to the Ministry of Munitions or such public Departments as have them in charge. The former owners become nothing more than managers. What power have they to make up for the loss of time that is constantly going on? I have an instance of hours lost by two firms only, where they lost over 4,000 hours in the course of two days. Taking 400 hours as being the time required to build an aeroplane we find that ten aeroplanes in the glider stage are lacking today. The matter is very serious indeed. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman will deal with that point, I think it is one that ought to be cleared up. It would be interesting to know whether the National Physical Laboratory at Teddington is in the hon. and gallant Gentleman's Department.

Major BAIRD

If the hon. and gallant Gentleman wants an answer, I will tell him it is not in my Department, but is in the Prime Minister's Department, although we are in constant communication with it.

Captain BURGOYNE

May I put my case first? The National Physical Laboratory was founded to investigate scientific problems and to help all those interested in aeronautics. Obviously, if it was founded for that purpose, manufacturers and men whose integrity is above reproach have the right to go and obtain the result of those investigations. At the present time how do. they stand? They have, first, to get a permit as to whether or not they can have that knowledge. When they go down with that one specific question, they get an answer back; but if there is another question which seems to arise out of that answer, they cannot put it because they are told they must get another permit. In one instance it took three months to obtain the information required, and in that time the particular series of machines dealt with in the question was deleted. It would be advantageous to the whole of aeronautics if any man well known to the authorities and who was above reproach and desired information could go down there, hand in his card, and say that he wanted to know this or that. That is what the National Physical Laboratory was founded for. I have here a lot about airships and aeroplanes, but I cannot think that at this time I can serve any good purpose by going deeply into that matter. Obviously, with the explanation we have had from the hon. and gallant Gentleman and the admirable speeches we have had from those who have preceded me, although much might be added, it would be wasting the time of the Committee if I were to continue further. One does see a glimmer of hope in the opening remarks of the hon. and gallant Gentleman. I hope he will not think that the members of this Air Committee are desirous of crabbing any of his efforts. We are quite prepared to apply the ginger, as he suggested, before and behind, and to keep him up to the mark. So long as we see progress being made that is consonant with the development of this new industry, I do not think he will find any hostile critics in this House.

Mr. BUTCHER

As a member of the Air Committee over which Mr. Justice Bailhache presided, and which reported in November last, I rise to intervene in this Debate. I first wish to congratulate very heartily my hon. and gallant Friend upon his clear and satisfactory statement, and to express the hope that the new Board may carry out effectually the anticipations we have formed of its efficiency and success. We sat in that Committee for twenty-two days and examined fifty-four witnesses. We then formed the opinion which was summarised by Sir David Henderson the other day, when ho said: The flying men of this country are the salt of the earth, and they deserve the very best engines and machines that can be supplied to them. In that opinion Sir David Henderson will find that every man in this country who knows anything about the subject will agree with him. The opinion which was expressed by us at the time has been greatly strengthened and encouraged by everything that has happened since. It is not too much to say that the offensive on the Somme last year and the greater successful results which have attended our offensive this year in France could never have been attained but for the extraordinary skill and gallantry of our air- men. In the first place, the airmen enabled our Artillery to direct its fire in a way which in its turn enable our Infantry to advance. Without our airmen the Artillery could not have effected the magnificent success it did, and without the Artillery our Infantry could not have advanced with such splendid gallantry and captured the positions we have already captured from the Germans. May I give the Committee one illustration, and only one, of the kind of things our airmen do and the sort of gallantry they show? Only this afternoon I was speaking to one of our wounded airmen. A year ago he was flying in France over the German lines. In the course of his operations one of our machines which was over his head was hit by the enemy, and fell on the top of his machine. The two machines were locked together, and they, with the two pilots and observers, fell a distance of one mile from the sky to the ground. It sounds a little more like fiction than fact when I tell the Committee that one of the pilots who fell that mile from the sky is still alive. I regret to say he is grievously injured, but he is still alive, with a splendid cheerfulness and courage which distinguishes all our wounded. He was here this afternoon listening to this Debate. I trust that some form of employment will be obtained for him, which he is still able to do, notwithstanding his injuries. That is an illustration worth giving as showing the kind of things our airmen have done and will do in this War.

8.0 P.M.

May I say a word about the recommendations of the Committee of which Mr. Justice Bailhache is the Chairman? Our first recommendation was that the equipment of the Royal Flying Corps should be entirely separated from the executive command. That has been done, and I believe everyone approves that it is a proper and useful change. Our second recommendation was that there should be one equipment department, charged with the equipment both of the Army and Naval Air Services. I am glad to say that the Air Board is the embodiment of that recommendation, and I think there is every reason to hope and believe that some, if not all, of the friction and difficulty which existed in the old days, when the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service were looking about the world separately for aeroplanes and for engines, will have disappeared, and that the result may be that both services may be better and more efficiently supplied than they were in former times. As to the second recommendation on which my hon. and gallant Friend (Captain Burgoyne) has enlarged, namely, that the Royal Aircraft Factory should not become a manufacturing establishment but should confine its activities to the subjects with which they dealt formerly, I had to be assured by my hon. and gallant Friend that the Royal Aircraft Factory is not going to become a great manufacturing department. The subjects with which it dealt in former days, and up to comparatively recently, were mainly trials, experiments, research, and the preparation of drawings, and I gather from something my hon. and gallant Friend said in his speech that so far as trials, experiments, and research are concerned, the functions of the Royal Aircraft Factory would be continued in the future substantially as in the past.

Major BAIRD

Yes.

Mr. BUTCHER

I am very glad to know that, and I would suggest that if they are going to carry out these functions satisfactorily, it might be a certain interference with their success in that capacity if they were to become a large manufacturing concern. I think it would be far better if they assisted the Air Board and the technical advisers of the Air Board in experiments in design, as to designs of aeroplanes and engines, and let the private firms of the country to a greater extent do the manufacturing. I hope my hon. and gallant Friend will be able to give us some assurance on that point. As I say, the Air Committee of which Mr. Justice Bailhache was chairman, strongly recommended that they should not become a great manufacturing establishment, and that recommendation was made after hearing very carefully all the evidence. Then there was one other recommendation which has not been touched upon to-day, and I should be glad to know what is going to be done with regard to it. That recommendation was that observers should receive promotion without having to become pilots. As matters stood when our Report was made, no observer could ever get promotion at all, unless he qualified as a pilot, and then got promotion as a pilot. We had a great deal of evidence which, at any rate, satisfied us that there are some men who are admirably useful as observers, but who possibly might not be so successful as pilots, and that it really is not fair to them to insist that they should go into another accupation, in which they are not nearly so good, may be, as that in which they are engaged, as a condition of getting promotion. This is, perhaps, a matter which hardly falls so much within the Department of the Air Board. I do not know how that may be. I should imagine it is not; but perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend will kindly take note of it in passing and bring it before the proper authority.

The hon. Member for Brentford (Mr. Joynson-Hicks), in the course of his most interesting speech, referred to the question of the mastery of the air. I venture to think that the expression "Mastery of the air" is a somewhat misleading expression, although I believe my hon. Friend was the first and true inventor of it. Probably he means the same thing as other people mean when they speak of superiority in the air; because there cannot be any mastery of the air. There cannot be any absolute and complete mastery of the air, as we speak of mastery of the seas. I venture to think that it is quite impossible that we could ever drive out of the air every German machine and ensure that no machine should ever go up on the battlefields of France and elsewhere except our own. What we can aim at, and what I think we have successfully aimed at, is superiority in the air, and I think we have never lost the superiority. At some times our superiority has been greater than at others. There was a time, indeed, at the end of 1915, when the German Fokker came into existence,, when we did lose a certain degree of our superiority. We recovered that later on, in the early part of 1916, because we got machines which were able to meet the Fokker and beat it on its own terms. There is no doubt that in some respects some of the German scouts and fighting machines have very greatly improved of late. I believe the true position at the present time at the front in France is something of this sort—and in this I am quoting what has been reported to me by men who have recently come back, and who know all that can be known about fighting in the air in France. What happens is this: We are on the offensive, and therefore it is necessary for us to fly over the Germans' lines constantly, to fly far over them, and to take observation for purposes of gun-spotting, for bombing, and for all other operations essential to an offensive. The Germans, on the other hand, at the present time are, and for some time have been, strictly on the defensive, and their policy is, when our machines go over their lines, to send up some fast fighting machines and attack some of our slower machines; and that they have done with certain considerable success. I believe—and my hon. and gallant Friend will tell me if I am wrong— that at the present time the Germans have a very fast fighting machine with very powerful engines, and with very considerable power of climb and of speed. I should like to be assured that sufficient care is being taken to see that we have the most powerful and effective engines possible. The German engine is, I understand, the Mercedes. I am rather inclined to believe—if there is any reason why this cannot be referred to my hon. and gallant Friend will tell me—that we have not any engines of the Mercedes type. I do not quite know why, because I presume the design of the Mercedes is just as familiar to us as it is to the Germans. I know we have some very good engines of high power, and I would only suggest to my hon. and gallant Friend, what no doubt is very present to the minds of his advisers, that if we want to obtain that undisputed superiority which is essential to us we must do the very utmost we can to get the highest-powered engines. I have heard the phrase, "Building an aeroplane round an engine." I believe it is not an inapt phrase. The engine is of far more importance than the aeroplane, and if you have a first-rate engine, thoroughly reliable, of very high power, I should think it quite possible that it is the view of experts that you can build an aeroplane round it which will do justice to the engine. I hope, therefore, very much that our attention is being concentrated upon the production of engines of the highest power possible.

There was one point connected with the recommendations of this Committee to which I want to refer. One of the members, Mr. Charles Bright, took immense pains, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford knows, not only to think out and digest the evidence given, but I think he also read every part of the literature of engines and aeroplanes which exists in this country. He made some very valuable separate recommendations, and I was very glad to hear from my hon. and gallant Friend, in a reply to a question the other day, that some of these recommendations had already been adopted and put into operation. I think he also said that it was probable that some other of these recommendations would be adopted, and I shall be glad to hear from him, when he replies, whether further progress has been made in that direction. The only other thing I have to say is this: I should like to quote three lines from the end of the Report of our Committee, in which, speaking of the services of Sir David Henderson and those associated with him in the Royal Flying Corps, we said this: The gratitude and thanks which are Sir David Henderson's, due for a great work devotedly undertaken and well done, he will, we know, be glad to share with the officers and men who have served under him, whether as commander of the Royal Flying Corps or as Director-General of Military Aeronautics. I can only hope that after the Air Board has been in existence for some time it will be possible for us truthfully to give the same high measure of praise which we felt bound to give as his due to Sir David Henderson and the officers and men of the Royal Flying Corps associated with him.

Mr. SHIRLEY BENN

There are one or two points in my hon. and gallant Friend's speech about which I should like to say a word or two. In the first place, I understood him to object to standardising aeroplanes. I want to urge upon him that, while, of course, he wants to get the latest and best, to a certain extent a standardised airship is like a standardised motorcar. If you can get a large number, like the automobiles that you see in America, standardised, and have all the parts ready, you can turn them out in large numbers, and you will be able to turn out your squadrons in great numbers, and I urge on him not to lose sight of the fact that you can get greater despatch in building standardised aeroplanes than in building an ordinary motor. In the second place, he said we have aeroplanes at the front which were not up to the mark, that he was sorry and hoped to send better. When he is sending better can he not bring home the trained pilots out at the front, who are flying on the lower-engined machine, to help train the new men and to practise on the higher-engined aeroplanes here before sending them out to the front to fight? The third point is, Can he not, now that America has come into the fight, arrange in America to get a large number of aeroplanes built and sent over here and use them as scouts to look after the submarines which are lying off our coasts and in the Mediterranean and to act with our merchant ships, because if we had a large number of these aeroplanes over here they would form a great protection for our merchant ships, which are. being sunk so ruthlessly. We quite realise what the Air Board is doing. We know it is making every haste in its power, and I am confident that in the near future we shall have not only the very best airmen who can be found in the world, but also the best aeroplanes and airships.

Major BA1RD

Allow me to say how much I appreciate the way in which the Committee has accepted the Vote that has been presented, but if they arc good enough to be more or less satisfied with the prospect presented to them of our programme in the matter of aeronautic development it is only fair to say that the credit belongs not to the present Air Board, which has only just taken it over, but to its predecessors of the Army and Navy who have carried on this very arduous duty since the start of the War. It is necessary to say that because it would be quite unfair for us to take any credit for the existing state of affairs. The criticisms which have been offered may be summarised fairly easily. In the first place, there is the usual criticism of the B.E. machines. That is, so far as anything can be in aeronautics, a hardy annual, and I am sorry not to be able to give any satisfaction, I am afraid, to hon. Members who quite definitely ask that that machine should be withdrawn from the front. It is impossible to withdraw it until it can be replaced by another. Otherwise you are going to handicap not only your Air Service, but the Artillery, the Infantry, and the General Staff, and to upset the balance between all the Services. To withdraw these machines from the front is absolutely and entirely impossible. I want the Committee to remember that the casualty returns, measured by the percentage of casualties suffered by the different categories of machines, do not bear out the contention that this is the machine which has the largest percentage of casualties. That is a very important point. The Committee will not expect me to give the figures. Not only is the percentage of casualties, Having regard to the number of machines in use, lower than the percentage of casualties with the higher-powered, more recent, and up-to-date machines, but it is very much lower, in some cases almost a half, of what it is with these higher-powered machines. The reason is that the kind of work that hon. Members complain about as being the sort of work these machines ought not to do, and which I admit they would not do it if we had better machines, is the sort of work they are only employed upon in exceptional cases. The work they are normally employed upon would be work which they could not possibly do unless the sky were kept clear of fast German fighting machines. It is the kind of work which cannot be combined with fighting, and therefore, however efficient they might be from the fighting point of view, they would not be able to do the work which they are sent up to do and fight at the same time, and, consequently, it is only in exceptional circumstances, when they are sent on these long bombing expeditions, that hon. Members complain. I have no right and no power, and I would not desire if I had the right or the power, to urge the withdrawal of these machines from the front on the ground of undue risk. Supposing in a land battle, when you got to the end of your ordinary troops, and had nothing left but batmen and cooks, what justification would you have if you lost the battle, which you very likely would not have done if you put those batmen and cooks into the line? It is ruthless and brutal—anything you like—but it is war. We are supplying other machines as rapidly as we can, but until we can supply them there is not the slightest chance that we can discontinue to send the other machines up on these duties.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS

I do not wish to press my hon. and gallant Friend, but can he give any approximate date when he thinks there will be enough new machines to prevent these machines going on bombing expeditions?

Major BAIRD

Aeronautics is a most desperate thing to prophesy about. Let me give my hon. Friend an example of the kind of difficulty that absolutely queers the pitch. One of the new machines which we are sending out has a very satisfactory engine, but an appalling quantity of them have proved to be faulty when we came to test them in all their parts. It was due to faulty casting, faulty mixture, and faulty treatment. I only mention this as showing the extraordinary difficulty of prophesying. That puts the manufacture of these engines back. The difficulty had to be got over. It put back the output of these machines and postponed the time at which they could come into use. That is an instance of the difficulty of prophesying when these machines will be available.

Mr. BILLING

Was the design faulty before they made the new castings, or was it purely and simply in the mixing of the metal that the mistake occurred?

Major BAIRD

It was not the design at all. Then I come to the R.E. 8. I was taken up in the R.E. 8 last summer, when it came out and went to the front. It was reported on very favourably, and the machine began to come out in quantities. Hon. Members perhaps know the history of a new machine. It is produced in deference to requirements which are received from the front. There are no drawings, and it is made more or less by hand. When the R.E. 8 went out it met with universal approval. Having been made in deference to the requirements received from the front, it met those requirements, and it meets them to-day, but, unfortunately, you cannot get pilots to agree about it. Men who are flying the B.E. at the front are clamouring for this machine. Officers who are flying from headquarters to the brigade at the front all beg to be given this machine in preference to other machines, and yet you have most regrettable and horrible accidents happening with young pilots. I am sure the hon. Member for Herts has been misinformed when he said that young pilots were sent up after such a short time in the air. The minimum number of hours is twenty six.

Mr. BILLING

Does that twenty-six hours include the initial training to obtain a pilot's certificate, or the twenty-six hours' cross-country flying, or the twenty-six hours' training in the air?

Major BAIRD

Twenty-six hours' solo in the air. That is not all. Do not let hon. Members imagine that when a pilot gets out to France he is sent over the lines until he is considered by the officers out there to be fit. Of course, an occasion may arise when a man arrives from England in the afternoon and he is sent up bombing at night. That is not outside the bounds of possibility, but as a general rule a different system obtains. No one realises the value of the pilot's life more than those who depend for the success of their operations on the work of the pilot, and no one is less likely to squander the pilots—it is a horrible expression to use, but I hope hon. Members know what I mean—and no one is less likely to make a pilot undertake work where the risk is disproportionate to the result which may be expected than the officer in command of the pilots at the front. Therefore, I am sure that my hon. Friend has been misinformed. The information I had to-day as to the number of hours is quite definite. I was told that the minimum was twenty-six, and that was confirmed quite independently when I happened to be with a squadron the other day. The R E. 8 machine has given satisfaction. Of course, there had to be modifications. I do not say it is perfect. It would be ridiculous to deny that a machine on which there have been numerous accidents requires modification. Of course, it is not entirely satisfactory. It does good work in the hands of the men who use it in France, but apparently it does require modification in order to make it suitable for the average man. These modifications are being dealt with, and we hope that the result will be thoroughly satisfactory. As regards standardisation, do not let there be any idea that there is a hard and fast cast-iron objection to standardisation. You can afford to standardise your first hundred or two hundred machines according to the output of the factory with which you are dealing, and if you are going to have an output it is wise to do it, because nothing hampers production more than constant alterations. But unless you reserve to yourself the right to introduce modifications into the second batch of two hundred or three hundred machines, or whatever may be the number ordered, you are going to find perhaps at the end of six months that you have out-of-date machines. Within those limits standardisation is being carried out, but not on so large a scale as the hon. Member for Herts wishes.

Mr. BILLING

I suggested only the standardisation of certain types.

Major BAIRD

We must have absolute freedom of action. The hon. Member was good enough to supplement what he thinks is the gap in our powers or activities. He says there is no policy, and he wants to offer us one, cut and dried, with machines, pilots, and the whole thing complete. Let me assure the hon. Member that a policy does exist, and that it is perfectly impossible to draw up a programme unless you have a policy. The idea of living from hand to mouth in regard to machines or engines would land us into chaos, and probably into a position where we might have no machines in a very short time. We have a policy. I did not read fully the portion of the Air Board's Charter, which refers to policy, because I did not want to take up too much time and because it is a repetition of the old Charter read out in this House at the time of the creation of the Air Board. That Charter provides for the discussion of matters of policy in regard to the air, and for the making of recommendations to the Admiralty and the War Office, and it also provides that the Admiralty and the War Office shall concert their aerial policy in consultation with the Air Board.

Mr. BILLING

That is only in consultation.

Major BAIRD

They have to concert their respective aerial policy in consultation with the Air Board. That covers the whole ground.

Mr. BILLING

Does that include building policy or fighting policy? Do you control operations?

Major BAIRD

No. Nothing would be more deplorable than to spread the idea or to cultivate the idea that air fighting is an amateur's business. On the contrary, the men who have acquired experience in the War as airmen, and who are now at the top of our flying services, both in the Royal Naval Air Service and in the Royal Flying Corps, are the people who are far more capable of deciding how our aerial resources can best be employed, and they do that on the strength of their experience and knowledge, not only as airmen but also as men whose business in life it has been to study war. I deprecate very much the idea that it would be to our advantage in any way that an attempt should be made to take the conduct of operations out of the hands of trained naval and military officers. That is not the case. The point is that there is. a very much wider question than the mere operation. We decide the policy, but the operation has been decided upon by the naval and military officers who are going to carry it out. Therefore, we do not claim and do not want any hand in the operation. We do claim that we have got quite sufficient powers with regard to policy. I hope that my hon. Friend will consider that I have said all that I can about this question. It is perfectly plain that the B.E.'s will be replaced as soon as we have got sufficient machines to replace them. Meanwhile, from time to time, it must unfortunately happen that a B.E. will be used to perform duties which we would sooner have another and better machine to do.

As regards the question of the Royal Aircraft Factory, my hon. Friend, who is not here, was rather confusing in his attitude towards the factory and the relations between the factory and the Air Board. The Air Board is in no sense a manufacturing body. The whole of the supply and manufacture is in the hands of the Ministry of Munitions. But we who are concerned with the air all live in one house. We begin the day by a meeting of the officials representing the heads of all the departments, who meet in one room and compare notes, and arrange any differences which exist. This has been found to be a convenient arrangement, and in that manner any danger of friction, if there had been any —as far as I know there has been none whatever—is eliminated, and we expedite enormously all the work that has to foe done; for instance, such things as exchange of machines between the Army and Navy, when exchange is possible— for, as a rule, there are not enough for both—are arranged under the system of beginning work with a meeting of representatives of the heads of all the departments. The factory is an establishment which is under the orders of the Ministry of Munitions, and to that extent its relations with the technical department of the Air Board are precisely the same as the relations between the technical department of the Air Board and any other manufacturer. That is to say, if the factory makes a design, it is submitted to the technical advisers of the Air Board in precisely the same way as the designs of any other recognised manufacturer. But, like every other big factory, it has an experimental side. That experimental side is far larger than in the case of the ordinary commercial factory, and in addition to experiment and research carried on by the factory as such, it carries out any experiments or research work that may be required by the technical department of the. Air Board.

As a proof that research work has not been dropped, I may give the numbers employed in each of these branches as compared with what it was six months ago. In experimental engineering the number is now ninety as compared with eighty-six six months ago. In the experimental flight department the number is eighty-six as compared with eighty-three; and in the case of the research department, dealing also with aero dynamics, it is 107 as against eighty-three, so that hon. Members will see that there has been no reduction in these activities. As regards the ordering of machines, the policy of the factory is only to manufacture a sufficient number of machines to try the design and to embody any alteration which the Expeditionary Force, from their experience, find necessary to deal with the other changing requirements at the front. That in practice means, as I have explained, that we get the first batch of machines of Government design made at the factory. They do not continue to produce that machine. The drawings are handed over to manufacturers to produce machines as contractors to the Government.

Mr. BUTCHER

Am I to understand the Royal Aircraft Factory do not produce engines. They produce machines. Is that so?

Major BAIRD

They have not produced any engines since the hon. Member was on the Investigation Committee. They have produced designs, but nothing material. I agree on this point, that you cannot have too much real talent employed on the difficult work of trying to improve the machines. Whether in private factories or in Government factories does not make any difference. The great point is to have the machine as perfect as possible. As regards the references which have been made to the necessity of having high-power engines, I can assure the Committee that that is a matter of constant study, and the hon. Member (Mr. Butcher) will realise from his examination of the question when he was a member of the Committee how extremely complicated and difficult it is and how many disappointments there axe. All I can say is that every effort is made constantly to secure the best results. I think that I have dealt with all the questions which have-been brought up, except perhaps the question of promotion of men. That does not depend on us; it is entirely a matter for the Director-General. As to the question of pilots who obtain experience such as enables them to teach other pilots, I may-state that there has been a constant increase in their number, and it is a subject which continues to engage the attention of the Department.

Mr. S. BENN

Can the hon. Gentleman say anything about getting seaplanes from America?

Major BAIRD

That is not being overlooked, but as my hon. Friend will realise they have to take their turn with other things. It is not so much a matter of production as a matter of other claims on shipping that have to be considered.

Mr. BILLING

I do not think this Debate ought to be allowed to close without calling attention to the fact that there have not been forty Members present during the whole of the time the hon. and gallant Gentleman has been replying to the various points that have been raised in regard to the work, the very important work, of this Department. I see that there are not more than nine Members present at this moment, and that has been the maximum number during the whole of the hon. Gentleman's observations. I should not like this Debate to be brought to a close without calling attention to the fact. The hon. and gallant Gentleman, who represents the Government, has done his best to meet the various points which have been raised. He made the remark that the present conditions of the Air Service might be likened to the Western front on the outbreak of war, when the band men and the cooks had to go into the fighting line; but I would like to point out to the hon. Member representing the Air Board that the officers who were responsible for ordering the machines should have taken steps to see that they ordered them of the right type. The hon. Gentleman also suggested that we cannot have standardised machines for reproduction for some time, yet we have a machine which has been in use for two years, and which has been a standardised type—a most inefficient type —for that period; and he now suggests that we cannot standardise a much more efficient type for the next six months. I would appeal to the Air Board to at least give us the assurance that, if they cannot withdraw the machines because there is nothing to be substituted for them at present, they will at least see to it that they order no more of them for active service. Orders have been placed, I understand, throughout the country, thus employing skilled workmen whose services could be far better utilised. That is not too much to ask the hon. Gentleman, when ho recognises that these machines are obsolete, or at least obsolescent, and when they are not up to the job, to stop building a type which is inefficient and unsatisfactory, and concentrate energies on the machine intended to take its place. Reference has been made to the R E 8 machine. It is a machine which has a lot of tricks in the air, and requires to be handled by a most skilful pilot.

Design is at the bottom of the matter, and it is because those in command have supported men who have produced machines of bad design that half our troubles exist to-day. The hon. and gallant Gentleman said that some hundreds of base chambers were found on delivery to be faulty. I think I am right in stating that they were of aluminium, and I submit that if one faulty casting was found in connection with a machine of that description, those responsible should have taken the trouble to make investigations, and if it were found that there were not one or two, but fifty or sixty faulty castings, then I suggest that there must have been a question of design, if not of workmanship, in the case. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman will look to it a little more closely—and I beg him not to take for granted anything that is said to him, but will put himself to the trouble of inquiring—I think he will find, or I shall be very surprised if he does not, that fifty, or sixty, or 100 castings were delivered, but the design was not materially altered. An order was given for 250 engines of another type, and they got out some 200 of these. When tested, the crank chamber burst, and they had all to be scrapped. The hon. Member remarked that the Air Board is an amateur body, purely amateur body, but I should prefer to believe that is not so. There are members of the Army and Navy who sit at that Board, men of naval and military experience, and they at least cannot be considered amateurs, and the hon. Member is in constant communication with the heads of the Air Service. In all my criticism with regard to this service I have been prompted by a desire to save the lives of pilots, and to offer suggestions which I thought might have some grain of constructive merit. It may have been that I have been looked upon as offering those suggestions in a bundle of chaff, but I trust that hon. Members will recognise that I made them with good intention. Still, it has been with the very best intention that those grains of constructive suggestions have been made.

I would suggest to the hon. and gallant Member that there is a position for someone in this country which requires filling up. So far as the Royal Naval Air Service is concerned, if the chief occupies his whole time in seeing that the requirements of the Grand Fleet are met, then a very joyful condition of affairs will prevail, and he will have all his work cut out for him. If the orders of the Royal Naval Air Service were limited to serving the Fleet a good deal of the criticism in this House would pass into the limbo of forgotten things. The position which I suggest might be filled possibly by the Chairman of the Air Board, who, although he is an amateur, may be a strategist. We have discovered in this War some very good strategists amongst amateurs. That position to which I refer is the command of what would be a raiding squadron as distinct from the Royal Naval Air Service. That is the point I have been trying to impress on this House until I wonder which of us is the more weary. I know there is considerable objection against such an appointment. I know that the Royal Naval Air Service would object to it, and probably the Navy would object to it. I think the Navy might give some consideration to the value of such an appointment, quite apart from any irritatation it might cause to the Service, and I know the Army does not wish it either. Surely, if the requirements of the Army are met by the Royal Flying Corps and those of the Navy by the Royal Naval Air Service, there is no reason against the formation of a raiding squadron. If they do not want to have another Air Service, let them call it what they like—let them call it a Raiding Squadron, and let one man have supreme control, with instructions to initiate air raids. I am quite satisfied that the time is not far distant when the moral of our enemy, which I am glad to say is not as high as it was, will be considerably affected by a steady series of raids on their principal towns.

9.0 P.M.

This Debate has been listened to by very few Members. I thank the Parliamentary Secretary for sticking it out. He had, I expect, all that he had got to say cut and dry, and I suppose it was arranged at one of those wonderful conferences which I am pleased to hear take place. I expect there was one this morning, and the whole thing was gone over as to what he was to say and that he was to go so far and no further. I expect he knew pretty well what we would say and that it was suggested that some Members would get up and make some sensational remarks about recent losses and that others would make suggestions. I think he will understand that this is the only place where any representative has an opportunity of bringing these questions up. If he will take kindly to our constructive criticism, then I am sure we will endeavour to treat him to that rather than destructive criticism. If we feel that all our suggestions are tabooed, then there is no encouragement to continue in that kind of criticism. I should like to congratulate the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Butcher), who sits here and who formed one of the late Air Inquiry. It is the first time since I became a Member that I really felt that some useful purpose was being achieved by the critics of air administration here when I heard him admit that the various recommendations which the Committee had put forward had not only been approved, but adopted, and that there had been some wonderful reforms on account of that Inquiry. I felt that surely we Members who fought for that Inquiry for fourteen days as hard as we could, had not laboured in vain. I should like to thank my hon. and learned Friend for the gracious tribute he paid to the critics in pointing out the enormous good brought about by the Committee of Inquiry which the critics of the Air Service in this House brought into being.

Mr. LYNCH

I had not intended to speak, not having in any way prepared a speech, mainly because I feel that it is almost useless to speak even with reason and good sense to such a body as has been constituted to defend the interests of the Air Board. I would say by way of apology I was the first Member in this House to advocate a great air fleet, a great air policy, a separate Ministry, and separate arm. That is so long ago that it seems now in the limbo of time, although it took place in the early stages of this War. But again and again, when I have come into contact with those great Departments of the State on whose activities the very life of the nation depends, I have been astonished even in the estimate I would like to form of Englishmen, of their lack of brains and lack of real intellectual capacity, and the invariable habit of trying to shoulder off responsibility and to hide themselves behind all kind of shams and make believes and makeshifts, which I know are the great stock-in-trade of politicians. It is easy to make a member of the Front Bench. He has to learn a few tricks in answering questions. He has to put on a surface and a facade. He has to be dexterous in the use of hypocrisy and semi-official lies. But it is a very different thing to be able to produce a man who has a scientific brain, and who will look at a problem in its essential character, and endeavour not to hoodwink Parliament, or the people, but to solve the problem in its real validity, and to make that solution tell in the safety of the nation. Such a man we have not produced in anyone of the great Departments of State. My hon. Friend who has just sat down (Mr. Billing) has been attacked again and again, he has been sneered at in this House, and he has been treated most unfairly. I do not hold a brief for him, because he is very well able to defend himself, but I will say this, that it is greatly due to the driving force which he has brought into these Debates and to the suggestions which he has made, even though at times they have been couched in a somewhat rhetorical vein, that we have had that degree of activity which has been manifested in the governing circles which produced the Air Board. That Air Board itself is a sham. I dare say they know it themselves, and if they do not know it, that is a still further proof of their want of capacity. We have first of all the Army with its Air Service, a very necessary Air Service, but this Army, whatever its great qualities have been—and I am so far from wishing to belittle their great services that I am filled with absolute admiration for the Army until we reach a certain level of command—ought not to be left perfectly free to develop that function of air service, which, remember, it never invented itself and which no military man, although war has been going on since the dawn of time, ever allowed to enter his brain. The same remarks apply to the Navy. Military men, and I think men in all Government Departments, seem gradually to train themselves into a kind of frame of mind, marked by routine, bound down by red-tape, and dominated by tradition, which seems to deprive them of any valid faculty of thought at all.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. Maclean)

The hon. Member seems to me to be using this particular Vote in Committee for the purpose of an attack on administrations in general and on this administration in particular. Will he kindly confine himself to the question before the Committee?

Mr. LYNCH

I was trying to account for what at first blush seems an extraordinary phenomenon, that after nearly three years of war the mountain has laboured to produce this mouse of an Air Board, but I will come now to a definite and concrete point, and that is that even now, seeing that this War may last a long time—and remember that that is the calculation of the Americans, who I hope will bring some brain power into it—the Government should make an effort to rise out of this thraldom of tradition and definitely lay the foundations of a new and separate striking force for the air of great magnitude, greater than has hitherto ever been imagined, and proceed from tomorrow to lay it down on definite lines, so that that great imagination may become a reality, and if they are able to grasp that idea, to face that problem in its whole character, and even from the ground to lay the foundations on which it shall be built, they may finish by bringing into a reality a force which may be one of the decisive factors in the determination of this War.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolution to be reported To-morrow; Committee to sit again To-morrow.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Whereupon Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKEB (Mr. Maclean), pursuant to the Order of the House of the 12th February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."