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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 0418.PDF
to effectively defend our own towns and cities from enemy attack from the air. •*••*•• Canada has given us an excellent Canada iead in the matter of the promiscuous Lhritettou bestowal of titles- The Canadianof Titles. Government has forwarded to the Im- perial authorities an Order, containingfour radical recommendations, as follows :— (1) No honour or titular distinction, saving those grantedfor recognition of military service during the present war, shall be conferred upon a subject of His Majesty ordinarilyresident in Canada, except with the approval and upon the advice of the Canadian Prime Minister. (2) The Government of the United Kingdom shall exercisethe same authority as hitherto in determining the character and number of titles and honours to be allocated to Canada. (3) No hereditary title or honour shall hereafter be con-ferred upon a subject of His Majesty resident in Canada. (4) Appropriate action shall be taken whether by legislationor otherwise, to provide that after a prescribed period no title or honour held by a subject of His Majesty now or hereafterordinarily resident in Canada shall be recognised as having hereditary effect. It may be taken as certain that the publication of this communication has caused a considerable flutter in the political dovecotes in England. When one of the greatest of our self-governing Dominions thus publicly asserts its contempt for titular dis- tinctions—or rather,, for the manner in which they are conferred—it follows almost as a matter of course that a complete revision of the whole system must ensue at some comparatively early date. Undoubtedly the move made by the Canadian Government is one of the direct results of the disclosures which have been made relative to the sale of " honours " for political services rendered or conferred in considera- tion of contributions to the funds of political parties. These disclosures have caused all the best elements of British society to look askance at titles of all kinds, save for those conferred on our fighting men for services in the field. No one who really counts aspires to be enrolled among the decorated or titled. In fact, there is an ever-present fear among the best elements of the community that disaster may over- take the individual and that one morning he may awake to find his name figuring in an " honours " list. It is only the retired butterman class which hankers after these distinctions. To such a low ebb has the system of awarding distinctions for services to the nation fallen! And now Canada has said in plain terms that she intends for the future that none of her citizens shall be awarded titles or distinctions unless they have been earned by real service to the Empire. That is what the communication we have quoted amounts to when reduced to its real dimensions. And Canada is to be congratulated on the stand she has taken. It indicates that she is determined that APRIL 18, 1918. the canker of the sale of honours in the market places of the world shall not eat into her political life, which is a great deal to the good. • • • By Royal Warrant it has been decreed Promotion that in future promotion to the rank Merit. °* General shall be by selection instead of automatically by seniority. This is simply applying to the senior rank the principle which has long governed promotion to the" general officers' list in all ranks up to that of lieutenant- general. There appears to have been some amount of misconception as to the meaning of the Warrant, which has been taken to include all promotions to the general rank, so it is as well that its real applica- tion should be understood. Although the reform is one which, normally, would affect a very small proportion of general officers, it is an important one since it definitely establishes the principle that promotion to the highest active rank should be governed by the same considerations of efficiency and fitness for command as affect the lower ranks of the army, down to the junior regimental officers. With the disappearance of the fetish of seniority from the most conservative Service in the world, the outlook for merit in all our departments of public life becomes brighter. In the Civil Service the " seniority " principle has operated as a blighting influence, destructive to the last degree of initiative and good work. Under its reign there is no incentive to the young civil servant to prove that he is possessed of ability, since he enters the service knowing that his future is assured. He can forecast almost to a month the successive stages of his career and his progress up the ladder of " seniority," which leads at the top to retirement on a comfortable competency to be earned easily by simple adherence to routine and by never doing anything for which there is no precedent. Even in commercial life " seniority " has its part in the advancement of the individual, though to nothing like the extent towhich it obtains in thepublicservices, but nevertheless its influence can be seen all around us and never for good. The war will have done some good if it should lead to the entire abandonment of the idea that seniority should count for anything in comparison with the fitness of the individual for his work. Efficiency will be more and more required in the fight that is before us to regain our commercial position in the world. It will be required more and more in our Government departments in order that the burdens imposed on the community by the years of war may be lightened as much as possible. In the fighting services we have established the prin- ciple, and it only remains that it should be carried on. New Chief of Air Staff. IT was announced by the Air Ministry on April 13th that His Majesty the King has been pleased to appoint Major- General F. H. Sykes, C.M.G., to be Chief of the Air Staff, Royal Air Force, on the resignation of Maior-General Sir Hugh Trenchard, K.C.B., D.S.O. Lord Rothermere's Air Secretary. THE Secretary of State for the Royal Air Force has appointed Brigadier-General Guy Livingston, C.M.G.. to be Air Secretary to the Secretary of State, combining the duties with those of bis appointment as Deputy-Master General of Personnel in the Air Ministry. The Supply of Aero Engines. IT was announced on April 13 th that Mr. Alan E. L. Chorlton, C.B.E., has been appointed Assistant Controller of the Department of Aircraft Production, to deal with th? supply and production of aero engines, excluding Rolls- Royce engines. Senior Officers in the RA.F. IT is announced by the Press Bureau that, owing to thepeculiar circumstances in which the Royal Air Force has been formed while active operations are in progress, the numberof senior officers in the Force has been found insufficient to provide for the administration and command of the largeforces at home which have been transferred from the Navy and Army. Certain officers of high rank have thereforebeen temporarily lent to the Air Force by the Admiralty and Army Council to carry out these duties. 416
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