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Aviation History
1917
1917 - 1208.PDF
both the Admiralty and the Army, as I understood, were competing. I seenothing in this Bill to get rid of that. It does not in any way indicate what powers the Admiralty will have and what powers the Army will have in regardto the disposal of Air forces. The conditions in regard to sea and land are wholly different, but it is clear that the Army must control on land and the Navyon sea. There is nothing in the Bill to suggest that course should be adopted. On the contrary, I am surprised that the Bill contains a provision that anyofficer or man in the R.N.A.S. or the R.F.C. may within three months have to be remitted to his own particular service. That does not to my mind speak ofco-ordination or co-operation. The Attorney-General (Sir F. Smith) : The only object with which 1 have risenis to attempt to reply to one or two points which have been raised, and I hope I will not be considered punctilious when 1 say that those who have addressedto us a large number of questions left the House on the conclusion of their speeches. i am not desiring to take advantage of any such technical point, and I will attemptto address myself to the more serious points that have been raised. I hope I shall be permitted to begin by saying that no one is entitled to think that thebringing in of this Bill is any admission that the growth, increase, and efficiency of the. Air Service, both naval and military, in the course of this War is not oneof the most marvellous improvisations that this War, or any other war, has ever witnessed. It has been said by some of the critics of the Government thatwe ought to have introduced a proposal of this kind earlier. Others of our critics have said that we ought not to have introduced them at all. These lines ofcriticism were perhaps a little mutually contradictory, but I think the House will be willing to bear in mind, in justice to the officials concerned, and in justice tothose politicians who are responsible and who are over the officials, that they found themselves compelled, in time of improvisation, to multiply all ourresources in the air, whether in the Navy or in the Army, when the very existence of the Army and of the Navy may depend at any moment on the rapidity andsuccess with which that improvisation is carried on. Those who do justice to those considerations will, I think, be a little slow to criticise severely thosewho have been thought slow to introduce amalgamation of all the Services, which, everyone knows, was greatly resented by many members of both thoseServices. Let us never forget this, that the moment you develop a naval Air Service, and side by side with that you develop a military Air Service, you haveimmediately the soil from which competitive instincts spring, and this nation would not be the nation it was if from that soil and from those origins, from thevery circumstances of the co-existence of naval and military flying, we had not that competitive instinct which in the past has been the soil, the fruitful soilof gallant deeds. Mr. Billing : Why not have two Navies and let them compete ? Sir F. Smith : That question is even more foolish than those which the hon. gentleman addressed to my hon. and gallant friend. The hon. gentleman says why do you not have two Navies to compete. If the hon. gentleman could keep sufficient control of his listening faculties to understand even the most elementary points that were being made in debate he would see——• Mr. Billing : You have not made one yet. Sir F. Smith : He would see that I was not recommending the existence ofthat competition as an advantage, but that I was rather founding the case from this Bill, which attempts to abolish it, and I was trying to explain whathad been the difficulties in the way of those who, before to-night, had to deal with the task of amalgamating the improvisations.Mr. Billing : You were recommending competition for efficiency. Sir F, Smith •_ The House listened to a long, rambling, irrelevant speech bythe hon. gentlpman, who took an hour. 1 have not the time to smwa the foolish questions he addressed to the House. I was attempting to explain thereasons why this change had been so slow in adoption. I think the House accepts lrom me the suggestion that once you started, as we were bound tostart, under the historical circumstances in which the Air Services started, on a competitive basis, it was inevitable that you would create vested interests.You created vested interests in this sense, that every man in the Navy and in the Army—and, indeed, it is human nature, and it is known to be humannature—who has a command is naturally concerned to magnify the importance of that command and, if it be possible, to extend it. What has happened—themost wasteful and prodigal competition between the two Services. It is not •convenient in -every case to give full examples or explanations, but there arevery few people concerned and who study these things who do not know the immense injury that is occasioned to the Services by overlapping and competi-tion between them. It might well be if we had been all-wise, and if we had ample leisure and no other problems jostling against one another for considera-tion by His Majesty's Government, that we should have been able to deal with these things at an earlier stage of the war. Let it not be forgotten that in warthe Services are all-powerful. The Hoifee knows well enough what happens on the slightest attempt on the part of politicians to interfere with soldiersor with sailors. I have always been of the belief that it is one of the greatest misfortunes to attempt to foster, as has been done in the Press, the idea andto represent that the soldiers and sailors were all in one camp and that all the politicians were in the other camp. My reading of history teaches me that nogreat nation has ever emerged from a great struggle that decided its very existence, and may determine its very future, unless the politicians were ableto work side by side and hand in hand with the sailors and soldiers. They do an ill service to their country who attempt to disestablish that simple cacophonyl>etween the politicians and the Services. It is true that when the soldier or the sailor have come to manage on existing lines a particular arm of eitherService that it is extremely difficult for the politician or the statesman to interfere. But I do say this, the patience of successive Governments has induced themto try and overcome by persuasion the detailed arguments of the Army and the Navy to similar proposals to those of this Bill, which are the surest guaranteethat the great new proposals—for they are great proposals!—shadowed in this Bill will be worked with a minimum of friction and a maximum of good willbetween both of the Services. It is true that considerable sacrifices are to be asked from both of the great Services under the terms of this Bill. The hon.gentleman who addressed the House in a very moderate and a not unfriendly speech asked several questions upon this point. As I understood him, heinquired whether the new Air Board, to be set up, would absorb the functions at present discharged by what I may call, in popular language, the Militaryand Naval Wings. The main fundamental object of this Bill is to recognise what is the most amazing fact in modern warfare—that is, that all the conditionsof warfare have lieen revolutionised by the calling into existence of a new arm, the consequence of whose intervention are so immense and so incalculable thatno one who is at all cognisant of the operations of this war can doubt that for good or for bad and for all times a new arm has declared itself in war which isdistinguishable from the regular arm as was the Navy from the Army in the old days. It is the recognition of this fact that is the motive and spirit of thisBUI. How far it has been carried out precisely is a matter, as I think my Tion. friend will see, very difficult of definition. It is not so difficult to understandas difficult of definition. What, however, is important is the spirit with which •this Bill is conceived and the spirit with which it is contemplated that the•Orders in Council shall be. framed. It is the spirit and object of this Bill that the Air Service shall be recognised as an entirely distinguishable Service, thatthose who are responsible for it shall form a new and important Department answerable to Parliament and responsible for the Service for which it so answersto Parliament, and with complete control unfettered by any other Service over all those who belong to it, My hon. friend may say : Surely somequalification is necessary to the very nature of the case in that Department ? NOVEMBER 15, 1917. The real point of the qualification is this : ^ is quite obvious that the greatusefulness of the Air Service which is attached to an army is that it may be the eyes of the army. In other words, so long as it is loaned by the Air Board,-say, to Sir Douglas Haig, it is quite obvious, if you have overlapping and if the Air Council were to interfere with that object it would be destruction ofmilitary efficiency. But, subject to that qualification, the Air Council is to be . supreme. The qualification is not one with which, I think, any member ot thisHouse is likely to quarrel. The same qualification is necessary where units are lent to the Navy. As to the questions of promotion, those are matters whichrequire the most careful consideration. Similar problems have arisen in con- ' nection with the employment of the Naval Division under the Army, andproblems which, though not identical are analogous, have arisen in the case of the Colonial troops. The precise methods are a matter which can cither beraised in Committee or which can be discussed with reference to the Orders in Council. Sir H. Norman: Is H not the case that under the Bill the Orders in Councilof which the right hon. and learned gentleman speaks, which would refer to the R.F.C. or the R.N.A.S., would be quite ineffective without the consent of thoseServices ? Sir F. Smith : I really think, if my hon. friend will allow me to say so, thatwhen he makes that observation he has not sufficiently reflected upon the conditions under which Government is carried on under modern condit ionsLet me explain what I mean. It is quite obvious that you may have, if good will is not forthcoming, a hundred points of friction. You may have frictionbetween the Admiralty authorities, the Army authorities, and the new Air authorities. I assure my hon. friend that we "have such differences of opinionalmost every day or every week in this Government, and the method in which those are resolved is that where there are competing claims the representativesof the Departments in which those claims compete go before the War Cabinet, and they state their case, and the War Cabinet arrive at a decision. Do notlet me embark upon the great topic whether that is the best method of Govern- ment in normal times, but I do say confidently that it is the only way in whichin the Cabinet you could deal with matters of that sort. Sir H. Norman : The War Cabinet, and not the Orders in Council.Sir F. Smith : The hon. gentleman does not suppose that Orders in Counci are passed without consideration and discussion between the Departmen'tsconcerned. They do not spring up like mushrooms by night. They are dis- cussed between Departments concerned, and if there is controversy betweenthem they must go to the War Cabinet, and then a decision is reached at the War Cabinet. Take the simplest illustration of all. Sometimes there is aquestion as to the appropriation of personnel, and a question is raised as between the Army, Navy, and Air Service whether certain men ought to be draftedinto the Air Service, or some question is raised as to the promotion of officers. All those matters have to be dealt with by Order in Council. The hon. gentle-man the member for Herts (Mr. Billing)—although I exchanged a somewhat unfriendly passage with him a moment ago, I have, I assure him, not theslightest unfriendliness towards him, and, I notice, as other hon. members notice, the constant zeal which he devotes to this subject—but I think he wasprofoundly mistaken in the whole attitude with which he approached this Bill. He stated in the course of his speech an innumerable number of supposedomissions in this Bill. His knowledge of such points enables him no doubt to specify—and I do not doubt to specify with accuracy—a large number of pointsupon "which this Bill is silent. I would only ask the House to consider what would have been the dimensions of this Bill supposing we had attempted toinclude in it every point of omission referred to by the hon. gentleman in his speech. Lvjag »s this war may provu t« l><-, this Bill would hardly have pas«-dParliament, even on the most pessimistic basis. If it, indeed, be true that you cannot rely on the Army and Navy now iu the fourth year of war, loyally andpatriotically to combine to create a great Air Service, if, on the other hand, you cannot rely on them to give the political authorities the advice which theyalone can give, so that wise and prudent Orders in Council can be formulated dealing with all the points that he suggests ought to be put in the Bill, if youcannot rely on the naval and military experts to do that, I, for one, would despair of ever creating a flying service, in spite of the lessons this war hastaught. ' Mr. Hohler: It seems to me very important that it should be explained tothe members of the R.N.A.S. and the R.F.C. the position they will hold after the war. What is to happen to them then ? I do not want to impede thisBill but I should like to be assured that these airmen are not to suffer under this Bill. Sir F. Smith: I do not think theit-position is altered at all. Either-theyengage for the period of the war or they are attached. But is not this question a little out of the perspective with the crisis of the Motion ? Surely theHouse of Commons may be trusted on the conclusion of the war to see that the officers who have left the Army or the Navy to go into the Flying Service-not less dangerous than the most dangerous positions in the Army or Navy— sustain no loss. I think my hon. friend will find that the most studious carehas been taken to avoid any such consequences, but if he will, in Committee, point to any hiatus in that respect he will find that it will receive the mostcareful and sympathetic attention of the Government. The memfer for Southampton (Sir Ivor Bbili.pps) asked a question very forcibly, and it certainlydeserves and requires aWinswer. . He said that you are taking men from the counter and the shop and putting them into the trenches and other placesequally disagreeable, and I cannot understand why you afcny to yourself, except with the consent of fne persons affected, a power to move them from onebranch of the Army or Navy into the Flying Service. That is a question to be answered in Committee. Whether it be right or wrong, it is the reason whichinfluenced the Government, on the advice of the military and naval experts, to come to this conclusion. There is an old tradition in the Army, and Ibelieve in the Navy, that if a man joins the Guards or the gunners he has made his choice, he is entitled to it. He has selected his own field of gallantry, andwe ought not to remove him except with his own iree consent. Sir Ivor Philipps: We have often in this House ignored that rule entirely.We have taken men not only from one branch of the Army to another branch, but even from civil life. What I suggested was that as long as this Clauseremains as it is now it does make those who like myself are anxious to see an efficient Air Service doubt whether there is any stability in this Bill becauseonly a few men come forward voluntarily and you leave it to the individual. Sir F. Smith : My hon. friend is very familiar with military duties, and hewill understand why this was inserted in the Bill. He is fully entitled to point out that great changes in tactics have taken place, and to raise this "questionon the Committee stage when the Government will be fully prepared to consider his suggestion. I have attempted as far as I can to deal with the variouspointSjthat have been raised. The Government recognise the friendly spirit with which the House as a whole has been good enough to receive this Bill.They have received it in the spirit of a war Bill—not perhaps perfect in every detail—incapable in the circumstances of the time of containing all the termsupon which the House would insist in normal times of peace. If the Govern- ment receive, as we anticipate that we shall receive, the same indulgence fromthe House in the later stages of the Bill, the House on its part will find that the Government are prepared and anxious to consider in sympathetic spirit everycriticism and suggastion that is made, and is obviously made with the object of. improving the Bill and rendering it more workable.^Question put, and agreed to. "~ Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole Housefor Wednesday next. 1208
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