STRANGERS ORDERED TO WITHDRAW. (Hansard, 9 July 1917)

§ The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Lloyd George)
Mr. Speaker, I beg to call your attention to the fact that there are Strangers present.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
The Question is, "That Strangers be ordered to withdraw."

Sir H. DALZIEL
On a point of Order. May I ask your guidance, Sir, as to procedure? It would be of advantage to many Members of the House if you would inform the House whether it would be possible to discuss the second Motion, "That the House sit in private," after this has been disposed of.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
This Motion, "That Strangers be ordered to withdraw," cannot be discussed. The next Motion that I shall have to put presumably, namely, "That the remainder of this Sitting be a Secret Sitting," is open to discussion.

§ The PRIME MINISTER
May I ask whether it would be possible for me to state in two or three sentences, before Strangers are ordered to withdraw, why I am making this Motion? I think, with the consent of the House, I might do so. I can quite understand that the second Motion will be debated afterwards.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
I have to put the Question without debate. The second Question may, of course, be debated.

§ Mr. PRINGLE
Could not the situation be regularised by withdrawing this Motion, and first moving the Adjournment?

§ Mr. BILLING
Are we to understand that the Debate to take place on the next Motion will be private or not?

§ Mr. SPEAKER
If Strangers have with drawn, when that Motion arises, it will be privates.

§ Mr. BILLING
Are we to understand that Members of this House will be bound to secrecy before the House expresses its opinion whether they are or are not to sit in private?

§ Mr. SPEAKER
The House will have expressed its opinion if Strangers are ordered to withdraw.

§ Mr. BILLING
Does that automatically put this House into Secret Session or must there be a second Motion to make the proceedings from that time secret?

§ Mr. CHURCHILL
Would it not be possible for the Prime Minister to make a statement by leave of the House?

§ Colonel C. LOWTHER
Will the House have the opportunity of saying whether they wish to discuss this subject in Public or Secret Session?

§ Mr. SPEAKER
The Standing Order gives the House the opportunity of deciding whether it will sit in Secret Session or not.

§ Mr. G. FABER
Is it not possible in any way for the Prime Minister to say why he desires a Secret Session on this matter?

Sir H. DALZIEL
May I ask whether there is anything in the Rule to prevent the Prime Minister, with the consent of the House, giving a reason without any Debate why he is moving this Motion?

§ Mr. SPEAKER
Certainly, if the House will agree to allow the Prime Minister to do so.

§ The PRIME MINISTER
I think it would be an advantage to the House to know why it would be impossible for me to make my statement in full at a public sitting. If the House wishes full information it will be impossible for me to give it except in Secret Session. There are certain facts which I propose to give to the House and certain figures which it would not be not only undesirable but positively dangerous for me to give except on the honour of Members that they will not be conveyed to the public afterwards. I could make a statement, but it would be a truncated and an incomplete statement if it were made in Public Session. I should not be able to 1703 give the reasons why we have taken- a certain course unless I was permitted to do it under conditions where no publicity would be given to the facts and figures I desire to state.

§ Mr. BILLING
Would it be in order to ask the Prime Minister whether he will give the House an opportunity for open Debate after the Secret Debate has taken place?

§ The PRIME MINISTER
I understand that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said earlier to-day that if, after hearing my statement, the House desires a public discussion, he would be ready to give it, but the Government could not take the responsibility of giving the public figures which it would not be in the public interest to give.

§ Mr. BILLING
May I ask the Prime Minister—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order, order," and "Sit down !"]—may I ask the Prime Minister if he will in the Secret Session answer any questions put to him by lion. Members?

§ The PRIME MINISTER
Yes, certainly.

§ The PRIME MINISTER
said that it was better, first of all, to give, briefly, a summary of what actually happened. Twenty-two German machines, of the Gotha bombing type, carrying about 800 pounds of explosives apiece, came over London. Of these, three were destroyed, one by the machines actually protecting London. Besides this, out of the protecting squadrons which the Germans had organised in order to assist the return of the raiding squadron, six machines were destroyed and one injured. The attack, in fact, had not been made with impunity. He wished to point out that the first fact which the House should get into its mind was that complete protection in the air could never be secured. At the Front our machines were every day crossing over the German lines, and, in spite of the most terrible anti-aircraft fire and very powerful German air squadrons, 1704 they were yet able regularly to bomb stations and headquarters behind the German lines. If that could be done in a region where the German aeroplanes and anti-aircraft strength were most closely concentrated, and could be done daily, then the House would realise that no measures that we could take would give complete immunity. The nearest approach to immunity lay in making their visits so costly that they would not become worth the Germans' while. He wished to point out also that during the last four or five months our naval bombing aeroplanes had dropped over 70 tons of explosives on the German aerodromes in Northern Belgium, and had dropped 6 tons on those very aerodromes oh the night before the raid, whereas the total amount dropped by the Germans here was only some 2 tons.
The first consideration before the Government was to see that the Army in France was sufficiently supplied with aeroplanes. A sufficiency of aeroplanes meant everything to that Army. They were the eyes of the Army, which could not advance without them. By their means the Army discovered the enemy's trenches, guns, and machine-gun emplacements. To photograph these required air supremacy, and without that air supremacy it was sheer murder to allow troops to advance. The twenty-eight fatal casualties which had been suffered by the civilian population in the last raid were very regrettable, but, unless our troops at the Front were supplied with aeroplanes in sufficient number to secure a proper knowledge of the German trenches and positions to guide the Artillery barrage, their losses might easily be not twenty-eight, but twenty-eight thousand. The slightest deficiency in the aeroplane work, a single machine-gun emplacement overlooked, might in a few minutes mean the loss of thousands of gallant lives. The first duty of the country was to protect these men. The Germans realised the importance of this question quite as much as we do, and in order to check our air supremacy at the Front they had been driven in the first place to withdraw aeroplanes from the Eastern Front, with the result of actually losing the supremacy of the air at several vital places on that Front, a fact which has no doubt contributed materially to the Russian successes which have" recently been achieved.
1705 The second means by which they were attempting to diminish our superiority was by trying to force us to withdraw our machines from France in order to protect our own towns. If the Germans knew that by bombing English towns they could force us to withdraw fighting squadrons from France there could be nothing which would encourage them more. Nothing could be more disastrous to the conduct of military operations than anything which encouraged the Germans to believe that by these raids they could excite such a clamour in this country that the Government could not resist the demand for the withdrawal of aeroplanes from the Front. If the aeroplanes could be provided both for the Front and for our defence against raids that would, of course, be done. If not, the Army must come first and it was vitally important that the Germans should know it He feared that some of the articles which had appeared in the Press might prevent the Germans knowing it. He had seen something of the people in the district which had suffered from the raid a few hours afterwards. He had never seen people face disaster with greater cheerfulness and constancy. He saw no signs anywhere of panic. That was the impression left not only on his mind, but on all who were with him. He was certain that if the people of this country realised that for the moment all our strength had to be put into establishing supremacy in the air in order to win victory at the front they would be prepared to take risks which, after all, were not comparable to the risks run by our soldiers. The Germans were just as alive to the importance of supremacy in the air as we were. They had put forth prodigious efforts in the last twelve months. But the very fact that they were withdrawing machines from the Eastern Front showed that they had reached the margin of their power of production. We had not. In the last six months we had enormously increased our capacity for turning out machines. We had extended existing works and built new ones, we had added over 23,000 men to the number of employés in those works, we had quickened production by improved methods of organisation, and had enormously improved the type of machines. The Government's information was that the German capacity of production was not adequate to compete with the provision which they had made. Hither-to, however, the increase had only been 1706 gradual, as the measures taken at an earlier date by the Air Board and the Ministry of Munitions had not yet had time to reach their full fruition, but our production was now going up by leaps and bounds. We should, indeed, have been far better off at this moment but for the strike in April last, which lost us between 150 and 200 machines. The Government now hoped soon to reach a state of things where it was possible not only to meet what must always be the first charge upon it, namely, the requirements of the Army in France, but also to provide sufficient aeroplanes to make it impossible for the Germans to come over here without losses which would persuade them that it was not worth while to do so. It was: a very easy matter to go to poor people who had suffered and suggest that a raid like this was due to the negligence and carelessness of the Government, but he believed if those people were told what, the situation was they were capable of rising to a great appeal. If they were told that it was necessary to run some risks for a short time for the sake of the gallant fellows in France, they would do so cheerfully. It was only for a very short time, and he was confident that we could then not only secure supremacy in France, but also equip Lord French in such a, fashion that if the Germans came over again they would deem it the part of wisdom not to repeat the attempt.
The Prime Minister concluded by moving "That this House do now adjourn."

§ Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS
suggested that if it was good business for the Germans to spare machines to bomb us and strike at the centre of our fighting forces, it might be good business for us to spare machines in order to do the same. He suggested that more labour might be spared for the making of aircraft from other branches of munition work. He criticised the actual measures taken to cope with the raid, and asked for an inquiry.

Sir H. DALZIEL
also criticised the actual steps taken on Saturday, supporting the demand for an inquiry, and elicited the information that none of the raiders had come over London at a lower altitude than 13,000 feet. It was due to the great size of the machines that they appeared to be lower. He insisted that the expansion in our output of aeroplanes should have been secured earlier.

Colonel Sir J. NORTON GRIFFITHS
pointed out that while it was possible to secure effective command of the air in the battle zone it was impossible to secure a general command of the air. Even in the battle zone it was impossible to prevent enemy aeroplanes coming over our lines. He gave his own experiences confirming the vital point that we maintained our supremacy at the front.

§ Colonel CLAUDE LOWTHER
asked for more cohesion between our air and land defences.

§ Sir W. PEARCE
expressed the view that the Government ought to take further steps for the defence of London.

§ Lord HUGH CECIL
pointed out that London was far more accessible to the Germans than any large German centres were to us. We could bombard Brussels if we chose, but that would only injure a friendly population. The air problem was a purely military problem, and the judgment of the military experts ought to prevail.

§ The CHANCELLOR of the EX-CHEQUER (Mr. Bonar Law)
, answering questions put by Mr. Lambert, said that in the opinion of our experts our types of machines were as good as the Germans. He profoundly disagreed with the view expressed in the Debate that the Prime Minister's speech 1708 might have been made in public, as the most vital, though not the longest, passages in it were essentially of a secret character. He pointed out that the French section of the Allied front was much nearer to important German cities than ours, and that it was, therefore, natural that the French should play a larger part in offensive operations against the cities, as, indeed, they had done with great success and remarkable immunity during the last few days, eighty-four machines having heavily bombed six German towns with only two casualties. He certainly did not treat these raids on London as of no importance, but it was the balance of military advantage that had to be considered, and if a choice had to be made the Army must come first. When people demanded the instant production of vast numbers of aeroplanes, they were apt to forget the inherent limits to the extent and rate of such an increase, and the imperative demands of other Services.

§ Mr. PEMBERTON BILLING
continued the discussion.