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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 0469.PDF
MAY 2, 1918, Now, it cannot be thought for a moment that Sir John Simon—this lawyer-soldier of some ten minutes' service as an officer—asked his question for the purpose of extracting information for his own in- formation, nor that he asked it in the public interest. So far as regards the first, he did not require the information to amplify his own knowledge of the dates for which he asked. He knew them already, as a consequence of information obtained in his capacity as a soldier. Nor could he have thought that his question was in the public interest, since the answer to be expected could hardly carry the public know- ledge of the "affaire Trenchard" any further. Obviously, then, he could only have asked his question for the purpose of embarrassing the War Cabinet. Were Sir John Simon not for the time being a soldier .—had he stuck to politics as his first line of business —we could be content to let the matter pass as one of petty political malice and a part of the unsavoury game of trying to discredit the other side by innuendo. .But he has chosen to don the uniform of one of the .fighting Services, and must be content, like others of less public notoriety, to abide by the restrictions and disabilities of public utterance imposed—and rightly imposed—by his service. It is simply intolerable that these khaki-politicians should be free to use con- fidential service information for political purposes, either in or out of the House of Commons. We con- cede that many members of the House have done exceedingly well in the fighting Services, and it seems hard that a man who elects to serve his country as a soldier should suffer civil disability as a result, or that his constituents should be disfranchised because of the patriotism of their representative, but we do think that the dual role of soldier and politician is an anomalous one. True, there have not, so far as recollection serves, been many abuses of the duality, but there certainly have been enough to point the fact that the r&le is, as we say, anomalous and open to grave abuse. So far as we see, the only remedy is in the hands of the men themselves—the only restraint is in their sense of honour. But the game of party politics is a dirty one at best, and it is a striking fact that when the politician is faced with the decision of whether to allow his sense of honour free play or to score a point off his opponents at the price of the first, it is generally the sense of honour which is sacrificed. In the particular case under discussion, we are not at all certain how far Parliamentary privi- lege protects a Service member who improperly dis- closes or makes use of information which comes to him in the course of his service duties, but we certainly think Sir John Simon's military superiors should enquire closely into the question of whether or not they are able to deal with him for " conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline." • • • Does the Government want women to Shades cnrol in the various auxiliary corps for w. S. Gilbert, which recruiting is nominally open, or does it not ? We are impelled to ask the question because of certain correspondence which lies before us as we write. There are two letters. The first, from a lady—the widow of a flying officer British Official. THE GERMAN OFFENSIVE ON THE WESTERN FRONT IN FRANCE—A day-bombing squadron. Some 1. c -.,;.. 5: , , of the big bombing machines. . 467
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