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Aviation History
1919
1919 - 1132.PDF
is over it all. Sir John Hunter's Report says that of 70,000 men who were employed not one was earning bis wages. That is not a legal point. That is the point of a practical engineer skilled in dealing with labour. I have a case here. The Air Ministry employs unskilled labour in the eastern counties attracting all the men away from the agriculturists, paying double wages. I want the men to get good wages, but how can you expect the farmers to produce food when officials of the Air Ministry persist in paying actually double the wages which are fixed by the Agricultural Wages Board ? There is another point I want to put. The Air Ministry had large contracts for aeroplanes on November II. How many of these are being delivered now ? I was actually told of a case, a few days ago—and I put it here plainly to the House—that aeroplanes are being manufactured to-day, the Air Ministry is taking delivery, material is being used, labour is being used, and the tax payers' money will be spent in making aeroplanes which could be of no possible use whatever to anyone. Is that so ? If it is so, eight months after the Armistice was signed, there is a serious ground of complaint on behalf of the House and the country against someone at the Air Ministry. Mr. N. Chamberlain: Sir D. Maclean put his finger on the spot when he said that there was no central control. It seems to me that the only way to get that is to have what does not exist now—that is someone in an independent position in every great spending Department whose business it is to review and check expenditure, to question it, to say whether it is necessary, to make representations to the head of the Department, if he considers that it is not necessary, and if he does not get satisfaction from him to make representations to some outside authority, and that outside authority it seems to me should be the Treasury. I noticed that the Select Committee in their Third Report spoke favourably about the financial part of the Air Force, but they said that the Assistant Financial Secretary had not got sufficient powers. He had not sufficient powers, and he never will have sufficient powers so long as he is subject to the Secretary of State for that Department. There is already in the Air Force an Assistant Financial Secretary. All I propose is that his salary should be paid by the Treasury instead of by the Air Ministry. He would then be a Treasury servant and would be responsible to them. He would be doing his duty by them and by the House of Commons too, when he made representations, and if they were not listened to he could say, " I shall have to report this to the Treasury or the Select Committee on National Expenditure when they come to review the affairs of the Department." The Secretary of State for War (Mr. Churchill) : The very important and helpful speech which has just been delivered by Mr. Chamberlain will, I think, make the House feel that much is to be said for both sides, which have, I think, so far been represented in this discussion. I think that the Government is entitled to some sympathy from the House, and I think that the House is also entitled to a sympathetic comprehension of its difficulties and its position on the part of the Government. Sir D. Maclean, and the hon. gentleman who has just spoken, both said in effect, " We have had very good answers, very effective answers, but however good the answers are, the Government will acknowledge, with its preparations, its officials, and its organised apparatus of public information in marshalling the facts, that the expenditure goes on. We are still being drawn steadily along the path which no one can doubt must ultimately, unless our progress is arrested or deflected, result in very grave public and administrative disaster." That has been, I am sure, the feeling in the House during the whole of this debate. Let us be quite fair with one another. I agree that Government answers on points of detail are no answer to the grave feelings of anxiety, and the undoubted mass of sub stantial facts which support the view, that our expenditure at the present time is a grave public danger. On the other hand, I think that we are entitled, when definite specific points of policy are attacked, when allegations of a very injurious kind are made, to make precise and definite answers. Various questions have been raised in the Report of my right hon. friend the member for the City of London, and these points have figured in the speeches of various members who have taken part in this debate. There has been the clothing contract which was referred to, I think, by my right hon. friend opposite, and which acquires a special interest because of its associa tion with the activities of Miss Douglas-Pennant. On that the House will remember that from the very beginning of the year I have been engaged in a correspondence with Miss Douglas-Pennant, inviting her to make any charge of corruption or immorality which could be brought to the test of judicial investigation, and I have published to the House reams of correspondence which have taken place with that lady, in which I have been endeavouring to i nduce her to state a case for inquiry into a definite matter of a criminal or highly culpable character. Any hon. gentleman who likes to read that correspondence will see that no suggestion of any kind has been put forward which constitutes a fulfilment of that requirement. I am in possession of the House, and members can read the correspondence for themselves, and form their own opinion. However late in the day charges have been made by a Miss O'SuUivan in regard to a particular contract, and the moment those charges were made, the very same day, I think, that tbey assumed a definite form, an official inquiry was ordered, and that inquiry is now taking place, and until that inquiry has taken place I do not feel that it would be an advantage, and certainly it would be improper for me, to take any part in the discussion. But this I do say, that the results and process of the inquiry shall be made public and laid before the House, s that everyone may judge for himself. Then there are the allegations connected with the Renfrew Aerodrome. I am entitled, speaking at this stage in the Debate, to say that after the state ment of my right hon. friend (the Lord Advocate) no further reference to the question of prosecution is required from me. There was only one by product which arose out of this, of which I must say one word. One of the allegations was that a military officer who was involved in these proceed ings was not tried by court-martial on the demand of Sir John Hunter. The officer was a Canadian lieutenant. He was not employed under the War Office. He was employed under the Air Ministry in Sir John Hunter's Department. Sir John Hunter wrote to the Adjutant-General to demand that the officer should be placed under arrest, but the reason he gave was this : " I am unable to formulate any definite charge against him under civil or criminal proceedings, but I demand that he shall be placed under arrest." The Adjutant-General, not unnaturally, refused to take such a step against a Canadian officer, who is to a very large extent, except in case of emergency, outside the War Office jurisdiction, unless there is the prosaic formality of a definite charge in the first instance. But this officer was detained by the Canadian authorities at our request for upwards of three months in this country until the Crown Counsel in Scotland and the Lord Advocate's Office had definitely reported that there was no material charge against him which could be made the subject of a criminal investigation. As I say, for my own part there is nothing which would give me greater pleasure than to order a criminal prosecution against a person guilty of fraud at the present time. There is nothing which would be easier for a Minister at the head of a Department to do, if the facts warranted it. He has nothing to lose by it; he has everything to gain. I read the Report of the Select Committee with the greatest interest and I must say that I know how very hard their task has been and how much we owe to them for their devotion to their work and for the long hours they have spent in laborious investigation. At the same time, in regard to this AUGUST 21, 1919 question of the aerodrome contracts, it does seem to me that they have very largely missed the main issues. Let me take the House back to the autumn of 1917 and the early spring of 1918. What was the position ? Aeroplanes were being made in great numbers; they were coming forward ; pilots were being trained; but aerodrome construction was lagging heavily behind. Everything was being concentrated on a supreme effort for the years 1918-1919, and I think it is only fair to those who were then responsible for the Air Ministry to say that had the war not come to an end when it did, the exertions that they made—exertions conducted under the conditions of war, which led to great financial improvidence—it is only fair to remember that those exertions would, in all human probability, have placed us in a position towards the end of the present year to be absolutely supreme in the air, and possibly to terminate the struggle from the air alone. We must not forget that. In those days, when only the dregs of adult manhood remained for ordinary outdoor labour and construction, when our labour market was completely disorganised by continued war-time grants of wages, when there was the most supreme urgency to get on with the work, Sir John Hunter was appointed—I think by Lord Rothermere, or else by Lord Weir—to look after the aerodrome construction of the Air Ministry, and to bring that great element in our air policy abreast of the aeroplane and the pilot. Sir John Hunter addressed himself to this task with the very greatest energy and with immense personal force, and I do not think it was possible to have chosen a better man to have got the work done. At the same time, he is a man who is accustomed, like many of these big business men in their private affairs and businesses, to act on his own responsibility with a very free hand in giving orders of all descriptions, and not always to bother about the formalities of Treasury finance and accounting. When in January of the present year I became responsible for the Air Ministry, I confess to the House that I had a good many misgivings about the state of the aerodrome works finance and contracts of the Air Ministry. My attention was drawn at the end of February by Sir James Stevenson, who belongs both to the Air Ministry and to the War Office, and who is advising me on business matters, of which he has great experience—my attention was drawn to the state of the finances and accounting for the whole of this great area of work. After much consideration I saw clearly that matters could not be left where they were, and I was advised to appoint Messrs. Price, Waterhouse and Company, probably the best firm of chartered accountants in the country—one of the best firms, a firm with a reputation second to none—to make a special expert investigation into the whole of this subject of aerodrome contracts and finance. They have been engaged on that task for five months, and several of their reports have already come to hand. The Comptroller and Auditor-General shortly after this began to move, and he drew attention to the unsatisfactory state of affairs in this branch of the Air Ministry's finance. I should like the House to realise that the constitution in these matters may not work as quickly as hon. members may desire and as the times may demand, but the constitution and machinery of Government work steadily and faithfully. The Comptroller moved the Treasury, and the Treasury wrote to the Air Ministry, and we then told them what we had already done. They approved the setting up of this expert inquiry, but, in addition, they had an Inquiry of their own, under Sir Maurice Fitzmaurice, and they asked that Sir Gilbert Garnsey, who is a partner in the firm of Price, Waterhouse, and Company, and whose admirable work I had become acquainted with during my tenure of the Ministry of Munitions, should be co-opted on the Treasury Committee as well as continue expert investigation on behalf of this firm. There were the long delays in making peace with Germany, delays in demobilisation of the Army of the Rhine. That demobilisation has now begun. We have arranged with France that by October 31 our forces on the Rhine may be reduced to the dimensions of a strong brigade. We had, practically speaking, no Air Force before the war, and at the end of the war we had the finest Air Force in the world. This year the demobilisa tion of the Air Force follows and keeps pace with the demobilisation of the Army ; as a matter of fact, it has gone on somewhat in advance of it. The Army has been reduced to about a quarter, and the Air Force has been reduced to about a fifth, of its Armistice figures, and that process is going to continue. What of next year ? I see statements in the papers and from various high authorities that we are planning the permanent structure of the Air Force on the basis of it costing twice as much as the whole of the Army before the war. Twenty-nine millions multiplied by two would be £58,000,000, and if you were to allow for prices it would be £116,000,000 at least, but that, I presume, is not intended. We will say, therefore, £58,000,000. Who has ever suggested this ? Who in a responsible position at the Air Ministry or in the Government has ever suggested such a scale for our air defences in the future ? Personally, as a provisional decision for us to work by until the whole question of our defences can be considered in relation to our financial situation, I have pursued the following policy. I have instructed Sir Hugh Trenchard that he must provisionally frame his scheme within the limits of £25,000,000 a year, which is equal to something less than £12,000,000 a year on the pre-war basis, and I have offered him all possible support in the measures which he has recommended. Here let me say that this is a matter of policy which Parliament and the Cabinet may review. I am telling the House quite frankly the course which I am now pursuing, so that it can be criticised and argued on both sides. I observe that the Committee presided over by my right hon. friend the Member for the City of London, in its third Report, after taking two pages to deal with the Renfrew episode, and two more pages to deal with the clothing contracts, and two more pages out of the seven to deal with the cases of the motor-car garages and the complexities of Kennington and Belvedere Road, include this small but very significant paragraph, No. 28 :— " The Sub-committee examined Major-Gen. Sir H. Trenchard (Chief of the Air Staff), and are of opinion that he is doing all that is possible to cut down expenditure while having due regard to the efficiency of his Depart ment." I think I am entitled to take my stand on that. I hold most strongly that an earnest and resolute effort must be made to reduce the cost of national Government, even if it involves the abandonment of cherished schemes and of many projects which are desirable and useful in themselves. I am of the opinion that the risks of the financial situation are such that risks in other directions must be faced. I believe that it will be found, in these four or five years after the war, that the best course for the armed forces of the Crown is to aim at scientific progress and quality rather than mere numbers or instant readiness for action. Reduction of expense, as I have said, can only be obtained by discharging officers and men from the Army and Air Force as quickly as the situation allows. Every effort will be made to obtain the decisions of world policy, which in some cases are necessary before we can proceed upon our path. I go all the way with the House and with those out of doors in feeling that this question of the reduction of our expenditure upon armaments, after making due allowance for the absolute change in nominal values and the decline in purchasing power which has occurred, is the first need which we have to face in this House and on this Bench, but I shall not myself become responsible, whatever the pressure may be, for the maltreatment of the Army during the years which follow immediately after the war, nor for any policy which denies to the Royal Air Force a permanent and an effective and an independent means ef existence. H34
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