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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 0638.PDF
faith in a specific case, but other issues of a general tendency towards undue harshness in the adjustment of claims were raised. We cannot say that the reply of the President of the Board of Trade was one to carry complete con- viction. So far as the case which formed the main subject of the question is concerned, the explanation given may be accepted, but we confess we do not think that the whole matter is disposed of by the general terms of the answer. It is easy enough to explain that people claim under their policies for damage which has not been caused by aircraft or anti-aircraft gun-fire, but we are a long way from satisfied that the Government assessors are always reasonable in their views of what does or does not fall legitimately under the head of insurable damage. To our way of thinking, seeing that the matter is one of State responsibility to the assured, it would be far better to err on the side of geneiosity in the interpretation of claims than to go to the other ex- treme. Unfortunately, experience goes to show that that attitude adopted tends toward the latter. It would be absolutely calamitous were the Government to acquire a reputation for " doing " those who stand in the relation of clients to the State. The last thing in the world that the Government can afford is to have colourable charges of bad faith levelled against its relations between itself as an insurance institution and those who have been led to insure their risks with it. That is a fundamental fact which is well recognised and applied to practice by the private insurance corporations and which applies with far more force to the Government than to them. There is another aspect of the matter which we mislike, and that is the implication—which was not disposed of by Sir Albert Stanley—that the repre- sentatives of the Government are inclined to take cases into Court, relying on the rule that costs cannot be given against the Crown. If there is anything in the charge, and it must be presumed there is, it seems to us that the sooner very definite instructions are given to those concerned that the courts are only to be used as a very last resource the better. How- ever, this is only a part of the general charges which imply a tendency to sharp practice on the part of some of the Government assessors. It is very much to be hoped that the case quoted by Sir Herbert Nield in his question is an exceptional one, no matter on which side the merits mav lie, and we may leave it at that. The In the middle of last week the PressSupreme Bureau issued to the Press a communi- War Council qur which, while it made no attempt and the to minimise the gravity of the present risis. situation on the Western Front, was a decided improvement on the usual literary efforts of the official source of " news." It was, at the same time as it pointed out the certainty of still further anxious days to come, reassuring, in a dignified way, of the ultimate issues of the war. The communique dealt with the proceedings of the Supreme War Council at Versailles, and while it obviously could not disclose the data upon which the Council bases its convictions, it did set forth the main conclusions at which that body has arrived. " After a review of the whole position," it says, " the Supreme War Council is convinced that the Allies, bearing the trials of the forthcoming campaign JUNE 13, 1918. with the same fortitude which they have ever exhibited in the defence of right, will baffle the enemy's purpose, and in due course will bring him to defeat. " Everything possible is being done to sustain and support the armies in the field. Arrangements for unity of command have greatly improved the position of the Allied armies, and are working smoothly and with success. " The Supreme War Council has complete confi- dence in General Foch ; it regards with pride and admiration the valour of the Allied troops. " Thanks to the prompt and cordial co-operation of the President of the United States, arrangements which were set on foot more than two months ago for the transportation and brigading of American troops will make it impossible for the enemy to gain a victory by wearing out the Allied reserve before he has exhausted his own. " The Supreme War Council are confident of the ultimate result. The Allied peoples are resolute not to sacrifice a single one of the free nations of the world to the despotism of Berlin. Their armies are displaying the same steadfast courage which has enabled them on many previous occasions to defeat the German onset. " They have only to endure with faith and patience to the end to make the victory of freedom secure. The free peoples and their magnificent soldiers will save civilisation." We could find it in our heart to wish that more of these antidotes to pessimism had been given to the Allied peoples, for we like the tone of this. Confidence in the justice of our cause ; faith in the Allied com- mand ; and reliance on the valour of our soldiers and the constancy of our people seem to stand out of every line, and when the Supreme War Council thus manifests its faith in the issues, defeatism—even pessimism—cannot lift its head. For own part, we have never had anything but belief in the final victory of the Allies. Vicissitudes there have been and will be in the future. There has been bungling and mismanagement, and a frittering away of our resources in all sorts of side-shows and issues remote from the main business of beating the Hun, but while we have deplored the spectacle of incompetence which these things have laid bare to view we have never thought that the war could have any other ending than that of complete victory for the Allies. The campaigns of the coming summer will carry many anxious days for us. We are fighting a ruthlessly efficient enemy, who has made war his special study, and we are compelled to fight him with armies which, with no disparagement to the gallant men who com- pose them, are but amateurs by comparison. Nothing that has happened in the war is more illustrative of that fact than the recent German offensive on the Marne and the Oise. While we hate the Hun, as all good Britons should, it is impossible not to admire the wonderful manner in which the German staff carried out a series of operations of the most difficult nature, and carried them out successfully up to the point at which the Allied reserves entered into the fight to stay the enemy's advance. In particular, the staff work—in which we are notoriously weak- must have been simply magnificent. It could only have been done by officers who were artists at their work. But in spite of the handicaps, we are assured that if only the Allied peoples " stick it " the war can have but one ending. The enemy is using up his 636
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