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Aviation History
1911
1911 - 1063.PDF
DECEMBER g, ign. THE GOVERNMENT AND THE plGHT] ON Tuesday afternoon, 5th inst., at the House of Commons, Sir Charles Rose introduced a deputation to Col. Seely, consisting of representatives of the leading aeroplane manufacturers and designers, members of the Committee of the Royal Aero Club, and Council of the Aeronautical Society. The object of the deputation was to present the position of the British industry in respect to the proposed Government competition for aeroplanes, and to ask the Government to give consideration to certain facts, and in part cular to ask the Government to issue immediate conditional orders to British manufacturers, so that they might be assured of a return for their private enterprise, in the event of producing machines fulfilling the stated requirements, and not merely have to take a sporting chance of winning one of a limited number of prizes. In introducing the deputation, Sir Charles Rose outlined various points that the different speakers were to emphasize and a brief synopsis of their argument may be given as follows: 1. The Government must depend upon the home sources of supply when the use of aeroplanes in the Services is begun. 2. The proposed competition in its present form is not going to help the Government to build up that home source of supply, because in a competition held at the present time the prize would inevitably go abroad. In effect, this would result in the British Government financing foreign development. This is due to the fact that the British industry at the present tinae is not in a fit condition to meet foreign competition on level terms. The industry was established, and is still maintained, purely by private enterprise, whereas the French industry his received a large amount of Government support from the outset. If sufficient space of time is given to the British industry, it will be in a position to meet foreign competition with equal chance of success. 3. The only effective way to do this is to give conditional orders to the British firms immediately. These orders should be distributed widely, to ensure that the greatest amount of talent may be utilised for national purposes. You do not buy the foreign brains when you buy the foreign machine, neither do you buy the foreign mechanics with the foreign machine; but both brains and trained mechanics are essential to the successful development of a type. 4. Moreover, aeroplane materials are themselves specialised products, the maintenance of an adequate supply of which is equally dependent upon the existence of a healthy industry. The Govern ment cannot evtn build machines in this country of" any description, unless the materials are at hand. 5. Finally, if the object of the competition is to produce the best machine, it is unreasonable to expect British constructors to go to the expense of making their best efforts against this handicap of foreign competition, unless they are first offered the conditional orders. After the various speakers had delivered their remarks, the full text of which will be found elsewhere, Col. Seely replied, in the first instance stating how pleased he was to be able to hear what the representatives of the industry had to say, in which remark he also coupled the name of General Haddon. Col. Seely then proceeded to speak upon the various points raised by the deputation, and in particular emphasized his surprise at the suggestion that the com petition might beneficially be postponed. He did not touch directly on the matter of conditional orders, but several important points evolved from his remarks, and among them the following may be summarised as giving the gist of his views :— 1. The grounds for holding the competition, urged initially by deputation on both sides of the House, still held good, and the Government would go through with it. 2. The request for postponement caused him surprise, the difficulty in these matters generally being to go fast enough. The present straits of the industry seemed to be all the more reason for hurry. If postponement of the date was really desired, the request should be put forward. 3. Some aeroplanes would be wanted before the competition was over. 4. The object of the competition was to learn all we could, and the principal prize would certainly be open to the world. 5. It was a mistake to suppose the British competitor would not have a good chance of winning. Best to wait until the conditions were seen. The deputation had raised the question of silent engines, for example. It was queries of this naiure that they must bear in mind and ponder carefully. 6. It was not proposed to manufacture largely at the Government factory. 7. The Government regarded the aeroplane industry as an armament industry, like that of manufacturing rifles, guns, &c, AEROPLANE INDUSTRY. DEPUTATION TO COLONEL SEELY. except in very special cases, therefore machines must be built in the United Kingdom. 8. It was impossible to say how many machines would be required, but the statement had already been made in public that about 100 officers were to be trained, and machines would, of course, be needed in connection therewith. 9. More than one type of machine would be required. 10. In Col. Seely's private opinion the industry should not rely on sole support from the Government, which is unlikely to be able to offer enough work for its full development. Flying had not materialised as a sport because of the risks. The machines should be made safer therefore, and thereby receive the public confidence. Also, the safer they were the more the Government were likely to encourage their use. 11. The date proposed for the competition was June next. Col. Seely then asked if there were any other questions, and the Marquis of Tullibardine desired to know how soon the rules of the competition would be published. To this Col. Seely replied they would be out in about a fortnight, and in continuing he remarked more definitely than before that some orders would be given before the competilion was over in order to meet the immediate needs of the Army. Mr. A. E. Berriman thereupon asked whether these orders would go to British firms, also whether, in view of the immense amount of time and money spent by private enterprise in England, British machines that fulfilled the requirements of the competition would be bought and not alone those machines that happened to win prizes. Col. Seely replied to the effect that the movement in France had shown that it would be unwise f >t him to bind himself to purchase a large number of any one type of machine. In respect to the point about the purchase of British machines that came up to the standard of requirements set by the competition, although not necessarily prize winners Col. Seely said that the matter would be borne in mind, and the answer would be found in the specification of the competition. Col. Seely then withdrew, and the meeting proceeded to pass a resolution to the effect that the Government be recommended to start the competition in the first week of September, 1912, and not earlier. The following are the various arguments as put forward by various spe ikers from the points of view of the different interests represented :— General Policy. Speaker : Mr. J. W. DUNNE, representing The Blair Atholl Aeroplane Syndicate. War materials, and industries relating thereto, have a separate little political haven of their own, and are subject to a special and peculiar code of laws. Free Trade and Protectional disputants ignore them as being manifestly outside the scope of contention, and the bitterest tariff struggle leaves them totally unaffected. For they have always been subject to one special policy, the outcome of military exigencies, a policy which has been adhered to unswervingly by all the great European Powers, and supported by the unhesitating concurrence of statesmen of every shade of political opinion. And that policy may be briefly defined as a point blank refusal to recognise the existence of any permanent source of supply that is not situated in, a&d under the direct control of, the country affected. In rare instances, where no home supply has been in evidence, resource has been had to the complaisance of some friend iy neighbour, but such departures from precedent have always been of the most temporary nature, were never undertaken save under the more urgent necessity and with the greatest caution, and meanwhile every nerve was strained to remedy the country's internal deficiency by the earliest possible date. I may be wrong in my history, but I believe the Holland submarine boat was a case in point. This special and peculiar aspect of armament industries is so well known to every statesman, that I would have been ashamed to dwell upon it, were it not thai one or two journalists, presumably through nothing but dense ignorance, have been actually trying to persuade the public that in this matter of military aeroplanes some question of Free Trade versus Protection is involved, and that this deputation is assailing the Free Trade Policy of our Government. That, of course, is sheer nonsense. It is as representatives of an armament industry that we come before you, it is to an armament industry that we refer in our arguments, and we ask you to deal with these solely from the point of view of a War Office considering what treatment it shall mete out to what must eventually be its sole civil source of supply. IO69
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