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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 0468.PDF
are judges of military ability— the " greatest chief of the staff of the nineteenth century," but. it is not belittling his memory to say that in the conduct of his campaigns he did not display all those qualities which go to make a great leader. As Mr. Lloyd George very truly said, there is an essential difference between the qualities of mind and brain required by the man who sits in an office thinking out plans for the distant future and those required for great leader- ship and the inspiration of men in the field. It would be a calamity if the great abilities of General Trenchard were to be lost to the Air Force and the nation, and we doubt not that these will be used to the fullest advantage in some other direction than that of Chief of the Air Staff. There does not seem to be any difficulty in so using them now that the chief with whom he differed so seriously has him- self left the Air Ministry, provided General Trenchard can be induced to return to harness. Of that we do not think there can be any question—it would be an insult to a fine soldier to doubt it—and we look with confidence to the combination of Sir William Weir as Air Minister, General Sykes as his Chief of the Staff, and General Trenchard in a new sphere to bring the Air Force to that still higher state of military efficiency required by the stress of war on the colossal scale. Passing to the work of Lord Rothermere at the Air Ministry, he succeeded Lord Cowdray as President of the Air Board on the latter's retirement in November last. It fell to him to complete the good work, so well begun by his predecessor, which eventually resulted in the passing of the Air Force Act, con- stituting the single air service which is now an accom- plished fact. He has proved himself to be a strong man, of forceful personality, knowing what he wanted and how to get it. The work of re-organisation which he initiated immediately on his advent to the Hotel Cecil has been productive of the best results, even though individuals may have suffered as a conse- quence. It has been freely stated that the outcome of Lord Rothermere's re-organisation schemes has been something akin to chaos, and that he leaves an Air Council divided against itself. That we know to be absolutely untrue. On the contrary, although it is quite inevitable that there should be a certain amount of overlapping, and even some confusion, in the consummation of a gigantic fusion like that of the R.N.A.S. and the R.F.C., that has, we are happy to know, been the very minimum possible in the circumstances. The blending together of these two Services is proceeding more smoothly and with less confusion than the most optimistic had dared to hope, and in no small measure this is due to Lord Rothermere's ability and the eminently businesslike manner in which the many complicated questions in- volved have been handled by him. His retirement now is a real loss to the R.A.F. and to the country, and the sympathy of every decent person will go out to him in the sorrow which lies at the root of his resignation. • • • Lord Rothermere's successor as the Air Minister, Sir William Weir, is an un- Air Minister.' known quantity as the head of a great fighting Service. He has done exceed- ingly-good work as Director-General of Aircraft Pro- duction. He is the head of a great engineering con- cern, and thus brings a wide knowledge and experience of large-scale business_to bear on the development of MAY 2, 1918. the R.A.F. He is'young, too, as men are reckoned in the apportionment of high public office, and possesses great driving force and boundless energy. Whether he is also a great administrator remains to be seen. The new Minister has a great opportunity. He takes hold of a gigantic Service which is even yet in its infancy, and his will be the hand that will mould its destinies during a war which has really brought it into being. There is much that he can do to make or mar its future, and it will be with anxious eyes that the country will watch him during his first few months of office. For our own part, we have the fullest confidence that Sir William will prove to be the man for whom the country and the Air Service is looking to complete the building up of an over- whelmingly powerful air fleet. We have seen some- thing of his work at the head of the production branch of the Service, and it has been more than good. Then, his is not a political appointment. He has been selected because, the politicians having failed us all along the line, the Government has simply been driven by sheer force of circumstances to make its appointments by the test of suitability. Even so, its selections have not invariably been happy. In some cases its appointment of " business " men to be heads of departments has been almost worse in its consequences than though they had been the result of the usual political jobbery. Invariably, however, this has been the result of appointing a man who has made good in one department of business to carry on work which is foreign to him and in which he is handicapped by the prejudices and precedents of official routinism. In such a case the result is almost a foregone conclusion—it must end in failure. But in the case of the appointment of Sir William Weir to be Air Minister none of these causes are likely to be operative. Not only is he a man accustomed to think and act on the great scale, but he has the in- estimable advantage of having been intimately asso- ciated with the work of the department he is now called upon to control. W?e believe he will make good. • • «• Anything more indecent than the „ "J?? , manner in which politicians in khaki Political , * Incubus. are Pr°ne to make use of confidential information disclosed to them in the course of military duty in order to score off political opponents it would be difficult to imagine. A case in point is that of Sir John Simon and the questions he recently addressed to the Prime Minister, regarding the resignation of General Trenchard. .This lawyer- politician-cum-soldier asked in the House the other day : On what date General Trenchard tendered his resignation, and on what date the matter came before the War Cabinet and the resignation was accepted ? Before the question was answered. General McCalmont administered a well-merited rebuke in the way of a question to the Leader of the House, desiring to know if the latter was aware that hitherto it had been customary for members who hold commissions to refrain from making use of confi- dential information, which reached them in the course of their duties, in putting questions or taking part in debates which affect the conduct of their superiors, and did he expect that course to be continued ? Even that, apparently, did not impel Sir John Simon to withdraw what, in the circumstances, was a highly improper question and the latter was duly answered by Mr. Bonar Law.466
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