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Aviation History
1917
1917 - 1207.PDF
NOVEMBER 15, 1917. will be found Members of this House who are sufficiently interested in the privi-leges that a Member should resplct to support Amendments on many Clauses .which it is necessary to support if the House of Commons and Parliament areto retain the control of this Service. When the hon. Gentleman who is piloting this Bill referred to Clause 3, I noticed that he quite omitted, although I calledhis attention to the fact, the proviso of that Clause. Surely there is a proviso which is quite unnecessary. He states very loudly, with a considerable amountof satisfaction, that no man will be called into this Service against his will. He reads Clause 1, Sub-section (1), very carefully, that no man shall be calledinto this Service against his will and he utterly fails—I suggest almost to the point of deceiving the House—to read the proviso of that Clause which says thatif that consent is not forthcoming from the man he shall be forcibly introduced into the Service. What is thenext proviso ? If, after three months, he hasnot become acclimatised, he is to be allowed to go back to his original iot. I call that p!ayin» with the matter. Major Baird : I must settle that point. The hon. Member must realise thatthsre are certain people at the present time who are prisoner? of war and you cannot get at them, but if anybody within three months of receiving notice stateshe does not wish to be transferred, then the transler is annulled. Mr. Billing : I thank the hon..Gentleman very much, and I take it from hisreply that this House can take it as sure and certain that provisos (.1) and (6) of Clause 3 apply only to prisoners of war, and that no other member of HisMajesty's Forces can be transferred to the Air Force against his own will. Is that so ? Major Baird : Nobody can be transferred to the Air Force against his will,prisoner of war or otherwise. This is to make it watertight. Mr. Billing : I am very glad this point has been cleared up, because it was apoint which operated on my mind to some extent. With regard to sub-section (2), the question of seniority, I should equally like the bon. Gentleman to clear upthat point once and for all. He stated in his speech that the ides of allowing men to carry their seniority from the Army or Navy respectively, into this AirForce was purely for the purposes of court-martial. I do not know whether it would be more facile under Order in Council or the Defence of the Realm Act—which seems to cover everything for the support of the Government's policy— that for the purposes of the Air Force one day's service should rank for purposesot court-martial. If, on the other hand, it is not only for the purposes of court- martial that this seniority shall rank, I consider the Clause is most invidiousand unfair. It puts power in the hands of a person or persons unknown, because 1 am sure hon. Members will appreciate that, so far as this Bill is concerned, thepeople to whom we are transferring this power are quite strangers to us. I have heard it suggested that I.ord Northcliffe is to be Air Minister—he is a manof imagination and considerable force—and I have heard it suggested that the late Director of Military Aeronautics is to be the Minister. I have also hearditsuggested that General Smuts is to adorn that post. Atanyrate, by tins Clause it would be possible to transfer one man of five years' or three years' serviceand rank him of no years' service in the Air Force, and to transfer another man of perhaps one month's service in the R.N. A.S. and make him senior to the other.If it is placed in the power of any Council to rob a man of ten years' seniority without the right of a court-martial or appeal, you are not doing anything thatwill add to the harmony which is said to exist in such large quantities at the Hotel Cecil to-day. There are differences of opinion as to that harmony, butit is not part of my duty to refer to that now, and I am addressing myself purely and simply to the Bill. We have the question of pay and pensions.I am sure the hon Gentleman will understand that questions of naval and mili- tary pay and allowances are important, and under these circumstances it wouldbe interesting to have cleared up what acts on the decision of the Air Council in transferring naval or military men to the Air Service. If it is going to bea considerable decrease and they are going to suffer financially, it is reasonable to assume, in view of the ridiculously low pay compared with the cost of living,that by transfer they are going to suffer financial loss, you are not going to encour- age the best men to come forward. I should like that point cleared up, and Iwish the pay and allowances of the officers of this new Air Service could be embodied in the Bill. Another point is that even now I utterly fail to see what the position of thisnew Air Service is to the AVmy and Navy, respectively. It is absolutely essential to the well-being of the Service that so far as possible the Naval Air Serviceshould remain under the control of the Admiralty. I think it would be fatal .. to transfer the control or the policy of the Naval Air Service, so far as it is.necessary to operate with the Grand Fleet, into the hands cither of amateurs, as the hon. Member suggests, or into the hands of the Army officials, or anyoneelse. If the Grand Fleet by now does not know what it wants so far as the Air Service is concerned, it never will, and certainly it will not be taught by theWar Office or the new Council. Just as the guns of battleships are under the supreme command of the officers in command of the ship, and the guns ofan army are under the command of the army officers, so surely aeroplanes which are necessary for the operation of these respective services ought to beunder those commands. That is no argument against a complete and entire Air Service operating in connection with both those Services. It is not my intention to claim any special credit for the introduction of thisBill, but there is one thing which I have been pleading for the last nine years, and that is a separate Service.' This Bill does not give the faintest hope thatthat thing is about to be accomplished. We want to know what the policy of the Air Council is going to be and what are its powers. How will it standwhen it gets up against the Army Council or the Admiralty ? I would like it laid down in the Bill that the Air Minister shall not only havethe right to request but to demand that every piece of material which is not . absolutely essential to the well-being of the Grand Fleet and to the require-ments of the Expeditionary Forces shall be immediately transferred to the complete and supreme control of the Air Council. I would like to see, insteadof the new Ministry being dependent upon the good graces of the Ministry of Munitions, a certain proportion of the firms capable of increasing aeroplaneoutput transferred to the Air Council. Is the R.F.C. still going to exist after this Bill has been passed into law? Are we simply going to bleed the R.F.C.of its best men, or are we going to take the sweepings of the R.F.C. to form the nucleus of the great Imperial Air Service ? What is going to be the relationship between the Royal Air Service and the Admiralty ? Are we going to have put into the Imperial Air Service all the direct entrj- men ? Are the pukkamen soing to be allowed to transfer to this Service, or, if they volunteer, are they going to be allowed to transfer ? As far as I can see, nothing can be doneunless everybody agrees. Are we creating a real thing or are we simply creating a name—just a Ministry which is going to have the spare men of thetwo forces and any direct entries which they can get ? If so, then the Service itself, quite apart from the Act upon which it is founded, is doomed to failure.The Bill before us does not even say what the relationship of the R.N.A.S; to the R.F.C. is going to be. Above all, it does not say what the relationshipof the Air Ministry to these four distinct and separate Services is going to be, beyond the fact that they should mutually agree what is the greatest goodfor themselves. What members want to know, when this Bill is passed is, where the Servicesstands as a service. It is mpst essential that we should have an Air Service, and that it should be made worth a man's while to join it and that he shouldbe able to take up flying, the same as a man can take up the Army or the Navy, as a career. Then there is the question of the Aircraft Factory. Where does that stand ?Is it to be handed over to the Royal Air Service or is it going to be retained by the Flying Corps. There is nothing in the Bill. That is a most importantthing. It has never been my job in this House to plead the cause of a trade rbut there is -a very important work going on at this moment which has a very- great bearing on the whole future of aviation in this country. The Governmentis putting up huge factories all over this country which arc nothing more nor less than Government factories. They are putting up all the money to build,them and are supplying all the material for the purpose of building the aero- planes, they are paying all the wages bills, and putting fictitious names overthe doors to make people believe that they are private enterprises. I can give the names of four of them in private who have no more financial controlthan the office boys. They simply draw a small commission on the machines that come out. Their names are used as a blind to deceive the trade. It maybe in the interests of this country to set up these vast factories and to produce under these conditions, but if you stifle enterprise and arrest its developmentyou will find that other countries, which have not arrested private effort, and have not endeavoured to stamp out individual ingenuity, will leave us trailing,behind in the fight for the supremacy of the air. So far as transport works and buildings are concerned, the R.N.A.S. havedecorated the coast of these Islands at intervals of about two miles with vast buildings that contain, among other things, some thousands of engines which,,unfortunately, are obsolete or obsolescent, and a considerable number of very excellent seaplanes and flying boats. What is going to happen to all these ?Are they to be handed over to this new Service ? Surely these are matters of very grave importance, and the BH ought to inform the House what is tohappen in regard to them. The Bill does not provide the name or the rank that the various officers in.this Service should carry. It does not provide whether tliis Service is to have a distinctive uniform. Hon. members may think that is a matter of small.-importance, but I can assure them it is nothing of the kind. The question of uniform has caused considerable friction. The question now as to whetherthis Air Service shall be given distinctive uniform is one of very considerable moment to the men who will come forward to join the new Service. Then wecome to the question of title. You have lieutenants Royal Navy who rank with the senior two captains in the Army, and you have hundreds of lieutenants.R.N.V.R. who presumably take the same rank with officers in the Army. Are you going to transfer these men piecemeal into the new Service ? Captains -are going to come in and find themselves junior to naval lieutenants and naval, lieutenants are going to find themselves junior to military men. What areyou going to call these men ? Might I suggest to the Minister that the best- thing would be not to transfer any of these men, but to allow them to comeout of the Service for 24 hours and to be civilians again. There would then be no question of transferring them with their rank or seniority. Let us starton a clear basis. Let us start from zero and give to these men the appointment which their ability justifies, irrespective of the position they have occupied,in the past. You will find many young lieutenants who are infinitely more fitted to lead squadrons than many transferred squadron commanders in bothServices. I should like to see all these young fellows brought out. I should like to see a council or selecting body established and each manbringing his dossier showing what he has done, where he started, and what his experience has been. Then let him be offered a post in the new Service whichhe deserves, irrespective of his previous seniority. If this Bill passes as it is to-day it is neither a credit to its critics nor to itsconstructors. It is a nebulous and useless Bill and the only thing it does is to rob the House of Commons and private members of the House of Commonsof the privilege which freely elected men, when you can find them, really should hate. General Sir Ivor Philipps : I want to ask one question on a subject treated.earlier in the Debate. When the hon. and gallant Gentleman who moved the Second Reading was asked whether it was the intention of the Government thatthe R.F.C. and the R.N.A.S. should be handed to the Air Council, he replied,. " Yes, as far as I know." That is, of course, not a very definite statement fromthe Minister in charge of the Bill. I think the House is entitled to rather more information as to the Government's intentions. I do not ask my hon. andgallant Friend to lay down definitely what the Government are going to do. It would be absurd to ask that, but I do suggest he ought to give us somethingbetter than " as far as I know." When an hon. Gentleman sitting on the Oppo- sition Bench asked later on what really was going to happen, the hon. and gallantGentleman said that if the Army Council and the Admiralty did not come to an arrangement about handing over the Forces to the Air Council then, of course,the War Cabinet would intervene and give definite orders which the Admiralty and the Army Council would have to carry out. That is quite a reasonableproposition. But then we have this remarkable Clause 3, which I want to bring to the attention of the House. You are setting up an Air Force in time ofwar. One would imagine that at once you would transfer every flying officer and man to the new force. But you do not do it. The hon. and gallant Gentle-man in charge of the Bill said : " We do not want to compel anybody. We do not want to compel a seaman in the Navy, although he may now be in theFlying Corps, to go into the new force. Neither do we want to compel a soldier who may now be in the Air Service to go into the new force. We will not usecompulsion." We know we are at war. The Front Bench arc always telling us that. You take a man from the plough and you send him into the trenches,or you take him from an office and send him there. But you may not take a flying man who is already in the Service and transfer him from the Army orNavy into the Air Force. I do not think for one moment we are going to have a single Air Force as theresult of this Bill. There is nothing in the Bill which prevents the Army and the Navy still keeping up their Air Force, and 1 have not the slightest doubtin my own mind that the matter has been left in that nebulous condition because- the Army and Navy have definitely determined that they will have their ownflying forces. I do not believe for a moment that the Army could surrender its flying force. You have only to be in the front line of the Army in France torealise the intimate connection there is between the Artillery and the aeroplanes; and it is almost incredible that they are to be entirely divorced. At the presentmoment you have the Navy and the Army Flying Services more or less connected under the Air Board. Directly this Bill becomes law the new Air Force has nocontrol over the Army or Navy Flying Services, and, consequently, all the good that the present Air Board has done will be entirely vitiated. You haveactually a Secretary of State for the Air who has nothing whatever to do in any way whatsoever, by law, with either the work of the Army Council or of theAdmiralty. Mr. Lynch : It seems to me that in introducing a Bill of this kind which is thefoundation of an entirely new arm of defence, one. might have proceeded from the great exterior situation, observing the necessities of the situation which havebeen imposed upon us by the Germans themselves, and regarding the problem in that way step by step to work down until the final basis of construction wasreached, so that from that point the plans could be built up step by step, which would finally give us an adequate reply to the German menace. But insteadof the Bill being conceived in that form as a reply to the German menace, it seems rather to be conceived as a measure for amelioration, improving and developingthe present bad system. Mr. Hohler: I regard this Bill as one of great importance, but its terms areto my mind exceedingly nebulous. The real difficulty, as I have always under- stood, is the competition between the R.N.A.S. and the R.F.C. I doubt whetherthis Bill solves those difficulties. The great difficulty is in regard to the manu- facture ot the very best aeroplanes to be supplied for the Air Services, for which* •3 1207
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