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Aviation History
1910
1910 - 0726.PDF
[/Ding SEPTEMBER IO, 1910. THE SERVICES, J THERE exists in this country a certain group of individuals which professes to deplore the development of aerial navigation and all connected with it, on the assumed ground that the future possibilities of the movement are principally if not entirely bound up in the use of the aeroplane and the dirigible for purposes of war. The devotees of this cult, who form a portion of the "peace at any price " section of the community, are apt to cry out whenever opportunity favours them against the move ment, and to oppose both publicly and privately the use of a single farthing of public money for the perfecting of the infant science. They know nothing of the subject outside of what they read in their own particular daily papers ; they can see no possibilities for aviation except as a potentiality for slaughter; and in the plenitude of their ignorance they utterly refuse to see that apart from the use that can be made of aerial craft in war, there are vast commercial possibilities before the science and industry. They deplore, even while they recognise that they cannot stop, the spending of private capital for development purposes, looking upon it as being some thing akin to flying in the face of Providence. With their opinions, so far as that is concerned, we have nothing to do. Everyone is entitled to think just what he likes. But when he puts his ideas into words, or into action, it sometimes becomes another matter. They have a saying in the Navy which runs to the effect that you may think what you like, so long as you do not think aloud ! Not that we would for a moment prevent those who do not happen to see eye to eye with us in this vital matter of aerial development from giving expression to their views, so long as they will accord us similar freedom of expression. What we have in mind is this. It is held by those of whom we have spoken to be a wicked thing and an iniquity that the Governments of the civilised world should devote men and money to the perfecting of aerial craft to be used to enhance the horrors of war—already rendered horrible enough by the adventitious aids of modern science. Well, we should not quarrel with that point of view if it were the correct and logical one, which we contend it is not. Quite apart from that, however, we object to any implication that the primary use of either the aeroplane or the dirigible will be found in the realm of war. The main prospects of development for the future are, we firmly believe, very much the same as in the case of the steamship, the railway train, and the motor car. Many wise people may yet claim that this is manifest nonsense. You will never be able, they say, to develop up to that stage when air-craft will be as reliable, as safe, and as capable of running to a time-table as either of the three older methods of traction. Yet they are the people who, only a short fifteen years ago, prophesied the very self-same thing about the motor car—and where are their prophecies to-day ? Our own view happens to be that the fighting services owe it to the country to assist in the development of the science. We believe, too, that whatever the commercial possibilities of the aerial vessel it will bulk largely in the warfare of the future, and that this nation must be at least in as good a position as its possible enemies. It may be deplored, and perhaps rightly, that a new science should be so easily adaptable to warfare, but that cannot be helped any more than that the development of the turbine should have led to its adoption for use in warships. There are few commercial developments that are not taken advantage ND AEROPLANES. of to increase the efficiency of the world's fighting services in some,way or another; and to argue that all progress should be stopped in case it might have a bearing on warfare is rank foolishness. Let us consider for a moment the development of the steam turbine, of which we have just made mention. It was the invention of a private citizen, but the Admiralty early saw its possibilities, and has spent much money upon its perfection. The result has been that turbine plants have steadily grown in power and efficiency until the reciprocating engine, so far as concerns new war vessels—and the leading mercantile ships also—is as dead as Herod. It is not too much to say that the Admiralty has done more and spent more money for the development of turbine machinery than all the shipping firms of the country together. And yet, can it be argued that the turbine is an instrument of war pure and simple ? Can it even be argued that it is primarily an instru ment of war ? The bare query is calculated to raise a smile. If all the experimenting had been done by the Navy, and if the results had been carefully bottled up so that they had not been available for commercial use, there might have been some ground for classing its development as following the lines of big gun improve ment. But nothing of the sort has accrued. Private research, in combination with the financial and practical encouragement of the Naval authorities at the public expense, has resulted in the speedy production of some thing that has made for commercial and industrial advance. True, that advance has made our fighting machinery more efficient, and we suppose the peace party duly deplores the fact; but aside from that humanity has an engine that is applicable to far more uses than that of the propulsion of fighting craft. Without the spending of public money we could not to-day have had our Mauritania and Lusitania, because without the turbine the huge power-plants installed in them would have been impossible. It has been a case on all fours with the development of the aeroplane. Exigencies of national defence happened, as is only natural, to be along the same lines as that for commercial advancement, and in the case of the latter, as in that of the former, it is desirable that public money as well as private capital should be sunk. Aviation will have a wonderful and permanent place in the near future; it will have its commercial side— which will ultimately preponderate—and it will have its military uses. Therefore, it is most obviously the duty of the Government to assist in its development. Of course, no Government will weigh for an instant the outpourings of the minority class of grumblers to which we have referred. It takes all sorts to make a world, as the proverb has it, and to the end of things we shall have with us those who would risk the sacrifice of all that is worth having to do away with war and its trappings. But it is the duty of a Government to disregard the ultra-humanitarian clap-trap which too often disfigures the columns of the Press and which is poured out like a fountain from " peace " platforms. It is not that we fear that our own Government will allow its decisions to be influenced by the dicta of the opponents of war in their policy relating to aerial navigation. What we do fear, however, is that the responsible authorities will rest content to let the experiment and development be done by private enter prise—as indeed was the case with the motor car. 724
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