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Aviation History
1920
1920 - 0360.PDF
APRIL I, 1920 are discussing is really a most unsportsmanlike practice, for reasons which are quite apparent to everyone, and, on that ground alone, should be taboo among all decent pilots. TheFuture of CivilAviation There are beginning to be signs mani- fested which tend to show that the Government is becoming a little nervous of its position in regard to civil aviation. It is not more than a week or two ago that Mr. Churchill appeared to cut the ground from under the idea that any support for the industry was to be looked for from the State. He told the country that " civil aviation must fly by itself." He then went really meant was not what he said, but something much more elastic and possibly more welcome to those who view the present Government policy with alarm and misgiving. What the plural Secretary of State did mean was that civil aviation would ultimately have to sustain itself. It was not intended, he explained, to debar any Government action that might be necessary, after the report of the Advisory Com- mittee had been received, to keep civil aviation going during the present difficult year following the War, until it could be built up again. This is not much, but it may be one of those proverbial straws which show which way the wind sets. Either Mr. Churchill has been misunderstood on to say that the best thing the Government could or he failed to say precisely what he meant to say. do was to get out of the way, and the next thing was to smooth the way. He claimed that the first had been done, and that, before long, he would be able to tell the country all about the manner in which the way was being smoothed for civil flying. There was only one meaning to be attached to his speech. It was, Alternatively, he did mean what he said in the debate on the Air Estimates, but the Government mind has been changed in the interval. Of the three, we sincerely trust that it is the latter of the alternatives which is the correct solution. We are tired of plati- tudinous half-promises and speeches full of praise for on the face of it, an absolutely definite and apparently the work of the industry during the War and good final banging and bolting of the door upon every idea of State support for an industry which is universally admitted to be vital to the future of country and Empire. It cannot be said that Mr. Churchill's attitude was unexpected. No-one who has followed the trend of Government policy regarding aviation since the end of the War could have gathered, unless he were an incorrigible optimist, that the many promises of support held out from time to time were intended to be kept. The policy pursued has been one of constant neglect to fulfil promises and programmes, with the visible intent to gain time, while the industry died of sheer want of nourishment. Had the happy despatch eventuated as was obviously hoped, people would have partly forgotten that there was ever such an industry, and, in any case, the Government would have been freed from an embarrassment. We say, deliberately, that there is no other inference to be drawn from the facts than the one we have outlined above. But many things have happened to falsify the Government's hopes. People have not been so ready to forget as officials believe. Nor have those who were most prominent in the industry during the* War been content to retire upon the fruits of their labours in the time of stress. Strange as it may appear to the politician and the official, there are people who are so misguided in their ideas as to put the good of the nation before their own personal profit or ease. Patriotism is a plant which does not thrive too well under the blighting influence of politics or official administration, yet it is a hardy growth and refuses to be stifled, even under the conditions which have had to be met by civil aviation, and it is to the public spirit and patriotism of those in the industry that we mainly owe the change of heart which seems to be coming over the Government. ; L-; So powerful have been the influences at work since the War Minister callously laid down that civil aviation could expect nothing from the State that his henchmen have been compelled to hedge his Major Tryon, who succeeded to the post resigned by General Seely, was constrained, the other day, to explain that what Mr. Churchill TheProcess ofHedging statements. wishes for its future. What we want is to see some of the promises kept and to hear of a concrete policy which will make this country safe against aerial invasion and keep it in the lead so worthily established during the War. Even if we take the Under-Secretary's statement at its face value, there still seems to be strong pro- bability of long delays in the formulation of a real policy. It will be noticed that he referred to possible Government action after the presentation of the report of the Advisory Committee. Why wait for that ? The Air Ministry has its pigeon-holes full of reports and recommendations. Lord Weir's Committee fore- saw with absolute prevision the state of things which has actually come to pass now, and made recommenda- tions accordingly. The present Committee has been sitting for months, and has called in all the expert advice it could possibly need. It has made interim reports, and outlined a policy which would have gone far to save the industry if it had been adopted. What more in the way of reports and the views of expert committees can officialdom require to enable it to formulate a policy ? Surely, the whole of the data are there to indicate to the meanest intellect that unless the recommendations of its own advisers are heeded by the Government, we shall have to start the development of aviation all over again. It does not require much sagacity to see that we are rapidly retrograding to where we were in 1914—-that is, in the matter of actual use of aircraft. Then the aeroplane was regarded as an instrument of sport, with strong possibilities of usefulness in the carriage of mails and so forth. Experiments had been made with more or less success in the latter direction, and a few thought, in a detached sort of way, that there was a future for aircraft in transport. Still fewer saw farther ahead and realised the full possibilities. The Government looked askance at the aeroplane, and it was not so very many months before the War that the War Secretary was justifying inaction by saying that they were not completely convinced yet, and proposed to let others do the experimenting and to come in on the ultimate results. How much different is the position now ? How true it is that Governments learn nothing and forget nothing. 360
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