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Aviation History
1912
1912 - 0138.PDF
EDITORIAL. Our contemporary Vanity Fair—is very Military angry with us, in a gentlemanly way, for g^d having had the audacity to pass the Vanity Fair, opinion that any similar scheme to that of L'Auto in France, for the provision by public subscription of a force of " County " aeroplanes for Imperial use, would prove, at the present juncture, impracticable and even undesirable. Apparently—though we really had not heard about it when we wrote the article which is called in question— Vanity Fair has taken up the idea and is now in process of beating the big drum with the view of drawing attention to its own adoption of the French idea and its adaptation to the necessities of our own country. Passing over the references to "pedantry," which seems to be the only serious offence with which we are charged because we failed and still fail to believe that an expan sive territorial scheme of privately-purchased machines is what is needed at the moment, we come to the essence of our contemporary's proposal for the adoption of the French idea. Let us give it in Vanity Fair's own words : "This scheme—for which we claim no originality, which vs,V Auto's, and only such credit as our professional contemporary has graciously accorded L'Auto—has, we may say, been conceived and undertaken l>y us simply and solely to relieve the immediate situation, if possible, for the country, for the Army, and—a long way after, for the aero- industry. This last, we thought, might thus be given some firm if not very extensive basis; as a stepping-stone perhaps to the economical and efficient fulfilment of future War Office trials, and— orders ; to say nothing of the manifold developments of flight and its popularisation in civil life. For these reasons—not to discover too much at the moment of a very comprehensive scheme—we made the special proviso that all machines ordered and purchased by the Selection Committee—for which nobody in the trade should be eligible—should conform in all respects to the advertised require ments of the forthcoming War Office trials, as far as possible. Secondly, in order to secure the best machines for the country and for the sake of British industry, we made it a condition that all machines should be built in the United Kingdom by and of British labour and material throughout, no matter whence the design came. Thirdly, because we believe that decentralisation never spelt efficiency more clearly than in military aviation—while placing the results absolutely at the disposal of the War Office, we suggested that the machines subscribed for by each county might be kept as near as possible to each county's regimental or Territorial depot, provided that suitable natural facilities for flight practice existed in that district." There are three long articles in as many issues of our contemporary, all devoted to the argument that it is absolutely essential that Great Britain should at once put her aerial house in order—with which we cordially agree, and have been preaching that same doctrine for longer than we care to remember. And then we come to the scheme itself, which is substantially that outlined in the paragraph we have quoted. Let us begin by saying that we are not in any way opposed to the idea of this system of Territorial aerial defence. On the contrary, we welcome it now that it has been launched and will give it all the support we possibly can, consistently with the much more essential policy of urging upon the Government the crying need that exists for a forward move in aviation on the part of the War Office and the Admiralty, as the country can do with all the aeroplanes she can get hold of at the present time. We are against nothing at all that promises to help in the smallest degree towards the creation of a real system of aerial defence, no matter whether its genesis lie with private enterprise or with the State, by which for FEBRUARY 17, 1912. COMMENT. the purposes of this argument we mean the Government. Having thus clearly expressed ourselves, it now becomes our duty to endeavour to clear ourselves of the charge of pedantry allied with the implication of want of proper patriotic feeling which our contemporary prefers against us. In commenting upon the French scheme, we said that in our opinion any similar movement in this country would savour of charity to the State, or at least an attempt to achieve out of the private resources of the citizens what the Government has failed to do out of the public funds. That is the basis upon which the charge of pedantry is levelled against us. Now, we hold still to the opinion expressed in those lines. In order to drive home the charge, Vanity Fair asks if it is wrong for people to subscribe to hospitals or to the building of Y.M.C.A. palaces or for the Salvation Army to establish farm colonies. Certainly not. But what connection have any of these things -with the constitution of a properly correlated system of national defence, which is first and last the business of the Govern ment, so far as its actual carrying out is concerned ? Let us take a much more apt illustration than any of our contemporary's posers. Supposing one of our possible rivals adopts a new field-gun, which is streets- ahead of the weapon which arms our own artillery. What happens is that through Parliament and the Press our War Office is urged to come into line and, supposing the case to be really serious and public opinion to be thoroughly awakened to its seriousness, the Government yields to the pressure and we get our new gun. But whatever we do, we most certainly do not beat the drum around the country and beg for subscriptions so that we may buy guns to relieve the Government from its respon sibilities. But the Government having awakened to a due sense of what is necessary and having re-armed our artillery, there is then no objection in the wide world to- private enterprise supplementing the efforts of the State by the purchase of guns for the use of local forces. If we were once to admit the principle that it is good for the private citizen to shoulder as an individual the respon sibility which lies upon the State as represented by the Government, then there is an end at once of all necessity for departmental administration of the country's affairs, and, in matters military, we should soon get back to. the days of feudalism and the trained bands. Patriotism is a very excellent thing—we trust we our selves are as patriotic as those who proclaim their patriotism from the house-tops—but there is no sentiment which is more apt to run away with its professors, and^ with all respect to Vanity Fair and its able contributor, we fear that something of the sort is happening in its case. Our view of the military aviation situation is that every journal in the country would deserve well of the nation if it made common accord with its contemporaries in the educating of public opinion up to the point when the Government dare no longer disregard the demand, that our aerial forces should be put upon a sound and satisfactory basis. That having been achieved and the work well begun, by all means let us hear about schemes- for supplementing our regular forces. But until then we still do not think the time is ripe for private enterprise to come in. It is simply putting the cart before the horse— which is not good. 138
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