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Aviation History
1916
1916 - 0461.PDF
JOSE ICjIO. AVIATION IN THE IN the House of Lords, on May 23rd, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu moved:—"That this House considers that the development of aviation for purposes of war can no longer be efficiently carried on under the present system of the divided control and responsibility of two separate departments ; and that the time has now arrived when the supply of men and materials should be concentrated under single control, at the same time leaving the executive power over Naval and Military aircraft with the Army and Navy as at present.'" Lord Montagu said that he rose with a sense of unusual respon sibility. There was a breakdown to a certain extent in the discussion of this matter in the House of Commons the previous week, and since the late Order in Council it has become difficult to discuss this very important subject outside these walls. He thought the Government realised that if they put the screw down too hard they would only give rise to a sense of public dissatisfaction. It was on the floor of that House that this subject as part and parcel of the general policy of the Government must be discussed. When he spoke a little more than two months ago he made certain statements which were to be the subject of inquiry by a judical committee. He was going to that committee most willingly and as a matter of courtesy. He held very strongly, however, that any criticisms which were made in the House of Lords on the Government o« this or any other matter should be answered across the floor. If a member of Parliament who made criticisms of a Government Department were always to be liable to have to explain these statements before a committee, there would be no freedom of debate. This judicial committee consisted mainly of gentlemen who did not pretend to be experts. He had every con fidence in their impartiality, and he was prepared to submit every thing he had said to their examination. There was very little in his past utterances on this question which had not come true. He undrrstood the Government were in a difficulty. One could not expect the noble lord who so often answered for the Government to understand the intricacies of aviation. But in an important debate like this, the noble field-marshal and the noble duke who represented the Admiralty ought to take up the cudgels to some txtenf. He rejoiced to know that in future they would have Lord Curton, who h»d taken immense interest in the question, and would shortly become an expert on it, to reply to criticisms. Other conceivable ways of getting over the difficulty of replying on techni cal points would be to make the Director of the Naval Air Service a peer. Sir David Henderson might contest a seat for the East of Kent, or at Lowestoft or Newcastle. If Lord Rob;rts had had on occasions in the past to submit his case to a committee appointed by the Army Council to investigate his statements, Lord Montagu thought he would very often have been condemned ; but as we now know, he would have proved perfectly right. Notwithstanding, he intended to treat the committee with every respect and give them every kind of information. He would hi surprised if the verdict of the committee was not favourable as far as his share in this matter is concerned. As to the Air Board that had been just appointed, he thought the step justified the part which he and others took in urging this matter upon the House and the country. He was delighted that Lord Curtoa and Lord Sydenham were going to be members of this Board. As regards the noble earl, he had seen his work in India, and he had great confidence in him, and it was clearly his duty to support Lord Curzon in every way, and if he had any knowledge of a special kind to place it unreservedly in his hands. Lord Syden ham also had great experience. He knew it had been said that Lord Curzon was autocratic in nature, and he was delighted that he was, for his tendency to exercise autocracy might be of great benefit "n the work which he had to do. As far a» he could make out, the Air Board is the Montagu ^ommittee, if he might use the term, with some added advantages. L had a Cabinet Minister in the chair, which was a great advantage, and, secondly, it could lay down an air policy, and it seemed to nim a melancholy thing that only now in the twenty-second month of the war we should be beginning to lay down an air policy. That act alone would justify anything he might have said or done with a view of getting a better administration of the Air Service. But supposing Lord Curzon disagreed with the Air Board on a question °f Policy. He would make representations to the Admiralty or the War Offiee, and these two departments would be advised by the 'ery people who had disagreed with him. He would then appea io the War Committee, on which he would meet Mr. Balfour and Lord Kitchener, who were naturally also advised by the same technical experts with whom he had already disagreed ; and they would sit upon him also. As the next step he would take his case to the Cabinet, and then, perhaps, he would meet still greater a'fficulties and have to face the criticism of the heads of the great departments who had blocked his way upwards, trial (/OGHT] HOUSE OF LORDS. LZ yfive;, "irsr1^ af —.«£ ™? It J" 1" il SeemtHl lo him that tnc he»d of & ^ould be not only the head of a great supplying department, but th ,t h: shoul.i have power to order supplies and base them on the needs of his policy He wished to say that as the resu't of pressure so*e nod had already been done, and he hoped what was now to be done would be productive of furthei good. He did not wish to rake up the embers of the past, as that would be liad policy. Hs wanted to judge these matters by one test—how far do they help u- to win the war ? In regard to what had to be done in the future he was awa-e that they would have to justify fully their demand for a unified system of administration and for an Imperial Air Service. There might IK difficulties in carrying out changes in time of war, but in this matter he thought the Government might take their courage in both hands. Even if a mistake were made in giving the Air Board more power than it possessed today, he did not believe that that would lw running half as great a risk as they would l>e running by going with timid and falterii g steps along the path which eventually they would be bound to follow. Already a step had been taken which lid his approval anl which Lord Derby also strongly advocated. The Koyal Flying Corps had taken over de Keyser's Hotel, and he hoped that that showed that Sir D. Henderson and his colleagues had in view getting the Air Service more and more free from the trammels ol the past. Hr would like to see a Fifth Lord of the Admiralty—an Air Lord, to represent the views of those interested in naval aviation. Eventually a fully-fledged Air Ministry must come out i.f this ; sooner or later the Imperial aspect of the Air Seivice would arise. I know that already Australia has taken the matter up, and that a great many of the leading men of Canada are seriously considering the idea. Thus the Air Service would not be for this coun'ry alone. It must be an Imperial Air Service. All over the world the question of the supremacy of the air was being anxiously debated. In the United States th> re was an Air Kill before the Congress now. Individual states were organising air services. He said delil>erately that the first nation which achieved anything like supremacy in the air would have an immense advantage in war over any other. He would not reveal what we had done at the front j but he said without fear of ontradiction that we had not got supremacy at the front. He did not agree with the declaration made by Mr. Bonar Law in the House of Commons the other day that we had supremacy at the front and maintained it ever since. He preferred the fairer declaration of Mr. Tennant, who said on March 28th that at the moment the majority of ihe German aeroplanes were probably faMer than ours, but that this state of affairs was being gradually altered. Lord Montagu thought Mr. Bonar Law went far beyond what he was justified in saying. He looked forward to the day when the frontiers of India would be patrolled by aeroplanes, when aeroplanes would go up to discover where the peril existed, and whether the enemy was advancing from beyond the hills ; when they would be used all over Australia for for police purposes ; when they would guard the gateways of our Empire at Singapore, Malta, and Gibraltar, and when they would fly over the prairies of Canada as frontier police. He thought we should also come to the time when aeroplanes would be us.d for commercial purposes, and especially when the caniage of mails and passengers by aeroplanes would become one of the common things of the day. If there was a division on his motion, he would be proud even if he was in a minority of one, and he thought the names of those meml»«rs who supported him would tie a roll 1 f ho our in future yews. He knew it was difficult to get a Government department 10 look far ahead. For a Government department " now*' is never the appointed day. If one looked back upon any of the great movements ol ihe past it would be found that the official world is always the last to accept the facts of the day. We might have had all the rights of inventions in this country for a paltry sum of money if there was any foresight in a Government department. The same kind of official com plaisancy existed to-day. In a time of war this state of mind was more serious than it would be in time of peace. There was a great risk in delay. We were only on the threshold of great develop ments in aerial warfare. No one could tell how far it was going, or what influence it might have on the course of the war. You could not afford to wait much longer. The war was fast becoming one of exhaustion and stagnation. Each side was losing vast numbers of men Aerial warfare could be waged with a less expenditure of men and better results. For 5,000 aeroplanes, with two men H> each you would want only 10,000 men. With aeroplanes you could do more damage to the enemy with a smaller number of men than you could do in any way on land. 461
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