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Aviation History
1917
1917 - 0080.PDF
JANUARY 25,1917. to fetch and carry as he orders. -In ordinary times it inexplicable campaign of persecution of those who is possible to keep a check on the jack-in-office, but appear to have had no thought in mind save the with the Defence of the Realm Act.at his back the. intrp^ugtiQIi of this powder to the proper quarter, ii i lf h i itlth p^ugtiQ p ppposition is an entirely different one. The public is Sir Theodore himself puts the question very appositely 1 highest to the when he asks : " Shall this powder be used to killhelpless, and the official, from thelowest, has it all his own way, with the consequence1 Germans or shall it not ? that we are in danger of becoming more Prussianised even than the Prussians themselves. If a moral were needed to point the argument we have only to regard the outrage perpetrated by officialdom on Sir Theodore Cook last week. We do not propose to recapitulate the whole story. We have seen Sir Theodore's statement of the facts that led up to the raid on his office, and the lame official communique purporting to be an answer to that statement, and, taking the one with the other, we cannot recall anything in a long experience which has left a worse taste than the outrageous story disclosed of officialism run riot. We use the term outrageous advisedly, because whatever the rights and wrongs of the case—and until we know both sides we cannot pronounce judgment on Lord Moulton and the War Office in the matter of their attitude to the invention —the hole-and-corner methods of the officials and their systematic persecution of Sir Theodore Cook and his associates reads more like a story of the Inquisition under Torquemada than of England in the twentieth century. Persecution is almost too mild a word to use in describing the methods of the " authorities "—save the mark ! It seems to us to be a great pity that in Sir Theo- dore's letter the Times has contented itself with describing the officers concerned in this most un- savoury case by letters of the alphabet. Unless there is some very good reason to the contrary, we think it would have strengthened the case if the public had been told their names. They will have to come out sooner or later, and the sooner the better. Obviously, the matter cannot be allowed to rest where it is. It is not one for " investigation by the proper authority," to quote the words of the Press Bureau communica- tion. It is emphatically one for the most searching public enquiry by a thoroughly independent and impartial tribunal, so that we may be sure of arriving at the hidden motives that lie behind the official action. Until such an enquiry has been held and the very fullest light shed upon the whole affair there must remain a feeling in the public mind that^-, there is something behind it all that will not bear the light Does it promise greater safety in manufacture than other powders now employed?" Clearly, if it can be established—and Sir Theodore apparently claims that it can—that this powder will kill Germans more effectively than any other, the answer to the first part of the question is a most emphatic affirmative. Given that this is so, the second part of the question may be modified to this extent : that if it can be manufactured with equal safety, it must be adopted. ThePresident Again! Once again President Wilson has butted in on the question of peace. This time he has busied himself by laying down the American ideal of the perfect world in which there shall be no more war and in which nations and men shall be free to pursue the almighty dollar without thought or care for the mere considera- tions of national honour or human ideals. He has gone farther afield and told the world that the present war must be ended, and the peace must be one which will win the approval of mankind, not merely serve the interests and aims of »tlie belligerents, and he makes the astounding statement that the assurances given by statesmen of both groups of nations imply first of all that there must be a " peace without victory." We are frankly becoming very tired oHhe clap-trap • of this egregious person. In his latest effusion he enunciates ideals for the. welfare of mankind for which England has stood for the past hundred years and more. That they are a new discovery in the land of the dollar only remotely concerns us, except that we resent the smug complacency which claims originality for them. But when the President becomes specific and. starts to tell the world what America wants and of how America is more or less going to settle.the terms of peace, then we are very directly concerned. Surely, it ought to have entered his understanding by this time that the peace we shall make will be our peace and that we shall tolerate no interference from America or from any other nation which has had no of day. The British public is a long-suffering one. lot or part in the achievement of the results upon It has been content to surrender its liberties for the *•••••>• - *•,» . time being, and to accept without question the behests of its appointed rulers, but there are limits even to its endurance, and it will not need many such cases as this to stretch that endurance to something approaching the limit. Officialdom at large will do which that peace is based. If Americans are too proud to fight, we are too proud to seek or accept their aid at the council table, and the sooner this is understood on the other side of the Atlantic the better for our future relations. When President Wilson speaks of statesmen of both groups whose assurances well to remember that, even while the Defence of the imply peace without victory, he becomes grossly Realm Act is in operation, it is the servant of the public which has to pay for its services. Ultimately it is he who pays the piper who calls the tune. Over and above the question of the outrageous violation of private rights, there arises that of the public interest. The powder in which Sir Theodore Cook is interested is either a good thing or it is not. It has been well reported upon by the British Trench Warfare Department and the Aeronautical Depart- ment of the French Government. That at least supplies a reason why its claims should have received the very fullest investigation, rather than that the War Office should have embarked upon a totally impertinent, in that he gives the lie direct to every responsible statesman of the Entente Powers. In no single instance, on no single occasion, has any Allied statesman foreshadowed a peace which should be based on anything but the defeat of the Hun. That is quite sufficient answer to this meddlesome person- age. Peace only after victory, and peace on terms satisfactory to us and our Allies, without reference to neutrals. That is what we mean to achieve. The neutral nations, save possibly America, are to the full cognisant of Allied aims and ideals, and they know the peace on our basis is the peace they themselves desire. 80
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