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Aviation History
1917
1917 - 1233.PDF
NOVEMBER 22, 1917. Clause 3.— Transfer and Attaching to Air Force of Members of Naval andMilitary Forces.) • Mri Hareourt: I beg to move, in Sub-section (i), to leave out the words " withhis consent and subject to the approval of the Admiralty or Army Council (as the case may be)."In common with, I think, a good many other hon. Members, I was struck on the First Reading, and perhaps not very favourably impressed, by what 1should describe as the voluntary and permissive character of the Bill, or what would seem to be such a character if you confine yourself strictly to the languagein wbich it is drafted. At the same time, so obvious is it to every friend of the Bill that it is a conciliation as well as an amalgamation Bill, and so much doesit depend on tact, good feeling, and good will, that if the Government, and they alone have full sources of information, tell me that this or any other similarAmendment will make a clumsy and brutal change in the Bill contrary to the whole spirit of the transfer, so anxious am I that the transfer should take place,that I will withdraw it, although I hope more explanation will be given than was accorded to the House on the Second Reading of the Bill. What I desire topoint out is that whatever that is, it is not conciliation. It is compulsion, and a very effective form of compulsion. It says, in effect—and I was dealing withthe answer which I presume will be made to my Amendment—" Whether you like it or whether you do not, you must come under oui umbrella or give upflying." Otherwise why ha%'e a Bill ? Mr. Bonar Law : My hon. and gallant friend (Major Baird) at the end of hislast speech said a word or two with regard to this Amendment. The basis of this Bill is, in the first place, the determination of the Government that the wholeof the Air Services must be treated as one ; and, in the second place, it depends on the good will of the two Departments which are now engaged iu the AirServices and on their working harmoniously-. As regards the first point, the determination that the whole o£ the Air Services must be. treated as one andtransferred to the new Department and become a new service independent of either the Admiralty or the Army Council Sir I. Phillips : The whole of it ?Mr. Bonar Law : The whole of it—that is the first consideration. The second is that this conclusion was come to, and both the Army and the Navy loyallyaccepted it, and by accepting it have put themselves in"this position, that they have come under an obligation, which I am sure will be carried out, to act in thespirit and to transfer the whole services to this new body as soon as it is possible to set it up. That is the position in a nutshell. This Bill in the middle of warwould be absolutely impossible if there was not good will on the part of the two services for carrying on the Air Service. That is the essence of it. Then comesthe question of voluntary as compared with compulsory transfer. That deals with two different sets oi conditions. The first is the men themselves. I do notthink there is any member of the Committee who would want to make it com- pulsory on thepart of pilots in the Air Service to be transferred at this moment. Sir I. Phillips : Not in war-time ?Mr. Bonar Law : I will give my reason. At this moment, if an officer who is transferred to the Flying Corps were to say, " I prefer to go back to my oldService," he. would not be retained, and for "this reason : Every Member of the Committee knows that this is a service which, above all others, requires nerveand enthusiasm, and it is quite obvious that no one would retain for a minute a man in this position if the man himself felt that he would rather be in someother position. The experience in this war has shown that instead of people wanting to go out of the Air Service, all the inclination is to remain in. I dothink the Committee may be under no fear that we will lose on account of this option being given. If my hon, friend refers to mechanics and people of thatkind, there need be no apprehension, since their position is really much better than under either the Army or the Navy. I think the Committee can rely onno loss being sustained on that point. There might be more objection to the right of the Army Council or the Board of Admiralty not to allow particularmen to be transferred. I do not think it is unreasonable that both those bodies should have the right in exceptional cases to say that a particular man should beretained in his own Service. I admit at once, if that right were to be exercised to any extent, then the whole object of this Bill would be defeated, and the thingcould not be done. It rests, as I have said, on good will. Ther<j is not only the determination of the Cabinet, but there is the acceptance of thatdetermination on the part of the heads of the two Services. I am sure the Committee can rely that this is a power which will not be exercised except inmost unusual and exceptional cases. If by any chance the Board of Admiralty or the Army Council were to be unreasonable, then the new Secretary of Stateof the Air Department would have a position of authority equal to theirs, and would have the right to bring the question to the Cabinet, in order to see thathis intentions were carried out. I will ask the Committee not to press for this Amendment. All these questions of arrangements have been thrashed outbetween the three Departments concerned. They formed the subject of a great deal of negotiation. It has been done with the utmost good will on allsides, and I do not think the Committee, without the strongest reasons, should upset an arrangement which has been come to by those engaged in framing theBill. Sir I. Phillips : The statement, the very important statement, made by theright hon. gentleman has entirely Altered my view of the Bill. I say it is an absurd position, even now, and although I accept what the right hop. Gentlemanhas said, I think this Amendment ought to be accepted, and that it ought to go out to the country that you are in earnest in your determination that this shallbe a great force, and that every man who is in the force now shall come into it. Even now I shall leave this House to-day with a certain amount, not ofdoubt about the right hon. Gentleman's good intentions, I am quite certain of that, or any doubt as to the members of the Army Council, Sir David Hendersonor Commodore Paine, the Fifth Naval Lord, I have no question about those. But you have this large body of men who have certain feelings about this junctionbetween the Army and the Navy, and there arc questions of rank. I may say that if you leave it as a voluntary arrangement, I think you will not get overall the men you want. Even at the last moment I do think the Government are making a greatmistake. I think if you asked those gallant men who are going to be your air force, there would be no question of what their answer would be. I think thatyou are only hesitating over this because you have got old doubts of the Admiralty. How can we help having doubts when We know from the moment this outsideagitation began, and a very proper agitation, which compelled the Government to bring in this Bill what the Admiralty did. Why do we doubt their absolutehonesty on this matter ? What did they do ? They started immediately from that moment bringing all the naval officers in the Flying Services a great dealmore firmly under the Admiralty. They started making aeroplanes and all kinds of air machines in the dockyards. There was no necessity to do that inany way. They were not doing it before the war. I should like to have that contradicted, but I would even doubt an official contradiction, because my infor-mation on the subject is such, that unless I was taken into the dockyard and was assured that those machines were not being made there and could actuallysee that they were not on the benches, I should doubt, because we all know they are. Sir H. Norman : I am simply drawing what seems to me the natural inferenceIrom what has just been said by the Leader of the House. He spoke of a delicate and difficult arrangement come to between the Government on the one handand the. .Board of Admiralty and the Army Council on the other. Is it not a natural inference from that that the Board of Admiralty and the Army Councilhave agreed to accept the Bill as it is, on condition that these two lines in Clause 2, and the corresponding lines in Clause 8 remain ? In regard to these ] have handed in an Amendment. That is to say, they'have agreed, provided that theBill remains of a permissive character. If that be a fair and natural inference, and 1 think it is, then it is a very, very significant one indeed. The phrase hasbeen used about flying officers "being transferred." I would like to point out that this transference is really only a transference in name. It makes nodifference whatever to him personally, except that he will owe allegiance to another Minister of State, and will be under the control of another Minister ~instead of the Board of Admiralty on the one hand or the Secretary of State for War on the other. One might almost say that it is a matter of book-keeping, ofentries. This transference will make no other difference to him whatever. I think, therefore, that undue importance is being attached to it. If this agreement has really been come to—we know now that it is, becausethe right hon, Gentleman has told us so—what possible reason can there be for not putting it in the Bill ?Lord Hugh Cecil: 1 think the objections to the permissive character in respect of the control of the Army Council and the Board of Admiralty have beencompletely removed by the important declaration made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. We have learned from that declaration first, that this Billis not merely an Air Board Bill, but the policy of the War Cabinet put before Parliament as part of the policy of the War Cabinet; and, secondly, that theArmy Council and the Board of Admiralty are obviously—the Government coold not have promoted the particular purposes of this Bill unless that wereso—consenting parties, and willingly consenting in the public interest. Surely there is no reason—not the slightest—to anticipate that the ArmyCouncil or the Board of Admiralty will use their veto unreasonably. If such a thing happened the War Cabinet, in carrying out their policy, would certainlyoverrule it. I am, and always have been, a great believer in voluntary choice. 1 greatlydislike compulsory service, necessary as it is in time of war, and 1 believe in, many respects we* get a much tetter spirit in the Service if you base it on vol-untary choice. The all-important part of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's declaration is that it is the policy of the War Cabinet to make an independentAir Force, and that they are prepared to carry that through by exercising the authority in their hands. That declaration is worth all the compulsory provi-sions you could put in an Act of Parliament, because it is a declaration made by those who have the power to carry it out, and it is consistent with maintainingan atmosphere of good will between all concerned. Mr. Mac-master : I characterised this as a permissive Clause, and, to a certainextent,itis ; butit is also largely an obligatory Clause, because the word "may " empowers the transference of the qualified officers of the Army and Navy to thenew force, always subject to the consent of the individual, and subject to the consent of the Army Council or the Admiralty. In that respect it is permissive—that is to say, the permission of the Admiralty or the Army Council must be obtained, and the consent of the man, before' he can be transferred. Isthat an unreasonable provision ? I think the Noble Lord has made out a very strong case why it is not an unreasonable provision. On the first view I was rather in favour of the Amendment, but after fullconsideration I believe that this Clause is a wise Clause and a necessary Clause, and that it does not impair in any respect the vital power of the first Clause ofthe Bill constituting an efficient Air Force. Colonel Weigall: The Leader of the. House cleared the air considerably byhis declaration, but he also added, at any rate to my mind, one further difficulty. He made it absolutely clear that the Air Force was to be wholly separate, and aself-contained, complete force. Agreed. I only rise to ask that one point should be cleared up, and I hope that if this point is cleared up by the Government theefficiency of the force will not suffer. You have already, both here and overseas, an adequate administrative machine. There are now clearly defined com-mands of the Air Force which have their full and adequate administrative machine. Is it intended to superimpose another self-contained administrativemachine ? The hon. and gallant member in charge of the Bill informed us that there would be an officer corresponding to the Q.M.G. and the D.G.O. to dealwith the administrative service. But I do want to suggest that, in the interests of economy, we cannot spare the extra man-power and the extra money-power forfurther self-contained administrative machines to carry out these administrative services for a force that will have to be located in a command which alreadypossesses an administrative machine to carry out fully those duties. I realise that, from the point of view of the senior officer in charge of the corps, it wouldbe extremely difficult to draw a line as to where the administration begins and where it ends. There is only one other point. In his earlier remarks my hon. and gallantfriend led us to believe that the acquisition of land for aerodromes and so on was to be handed over to a new officer on the Air Council. 1 am sure he did not intendthat, and why I am so sure is that only this morning, on the sub-Committee of the War Office which is inquiring into naval expenditure, we had a greatdeal of detailed evidence from Sir David Henderson and Sir Howard Frank, Director of Lands, War Office, and Ministry of Munitions, which was in directcontradiction to trie statement made here by my hon. and gallant friend. (N Mr. Joynson-Hicks : There is one question I would like to put with regard tothe transfer of officers and men. I gather from the statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that everybody serving in the existing Air Forcesis going to be transferred to tjie new force. I want that to be made perfectly clear. I suppose my hon. and gallant friend does accept that view of theChancellor of the Exchequer's speech. Then I want to go one step further, and to express the hope that, in the event of any officer or man under the pre-ceding part of the Clause desiring not to be transferred, that officer or man will not remain in some kind of ethereal, emasculated R.F.C., but will be sent back tosome other section of the Army. I want it to be made perfectly clear that no residuum of a Flying Corps will remain in connection with the Army. My hon.and gallant friend nods approval. That is the only question I desire to ask. Mr. Lynch : This Clause seems to be the crux of the whole Bill, and, accordingto the decision that is given, I believe that this Bill will be a great success or a great failure. I differ from the Leader of the House in the view that there is noman who desires to make it compulsory that all men should be transferred. I am one of those who would make it automatic, because the transference does-not necessarily mean that any man who is doing good service in the Army or Navy will be removed from tie position in whichhe is doing that service, butit gives power and authority to the new Secretary of State to accomplish the very difficult task that we are now placing before him. Take the matter fromanother standpoint. I would say that this Bill has been brought into being by a great exterior danger, and what we want is rapidity to form and deyelop ahuge air force, which is capable of meeting the Germans at every point, and not merely holding our own on any front and gaining successes here and there, butdeveloping it to such a degree and with such intensity that once and for all the question of air supremacy is settled so that no German craft can live above thehorizon. That is possible only on one condition that the whole of the forces of the country are bent upon it, and that every energy is utilised and everyfacility given to the man who is to carry it out. If this Bill is made permissive the new Air Minister will have to fight his corner against these influences andpowers and the end will probably be a wretched compromise such as the Bill indicates, and, after six months, if the Air Minister happens to be a Member ofthis House, he will come down here and explain that he has done bis best and done all that was humanly possible. You should make this arrangement auto-matic with the whole service. If the flying man passes under the control of this Council the Allies win, but if you make it permissive the Germans win. Mr. Billing : I think it is quite unnecessary to give the Air Minister com-pulsory power to draw in these men. It is not only unnecessary, but it is unwise 1233
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