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Aviation History
1921
1921 - 0052.PDF
•\- - would be put would be, in addition to that of the Reserve Department of the Air Ministry for adminis- tration, the pay of the officers and men serving. Under the alternative scheme, it would be necessary to provide all the organisation «.nd material of com- plete aircraft units—obviously a far more expensive matter. The departure of Mr. Churchill from the ^ar Office and the 4ir Ministry>which is impending, is leading to considerable discussion as to the desirability of continuing the two offices under a single Minister. So far as can be gathered, the greater volume of opinion in political circles is opposed to the principle, but here we have to reckon with the Prime Minister, who may conceivably have altered the uncompromising attitude he affected when last the matter was debated, but who, on the other hand, may insist upon continuing a system which we are convinced is entirely wrong and vicious in its effects. Among those having active association with aviation, service or civil, there is only a single opinion, and that is that the time has come when the Air must have a single Minister who is able to give un- divided attention to flying and its future on both sides of the movement. At the time Mr. Churchill was appointed to the dual office we said all there is to be said of the wrong-headedness of the idea and there is nothing more that can usefully be added to the argu- ments then adduced. The answer to the proposition is so entirely self-evident that it is hardly necessary to emphasise it. and the real wonder is that so astute a politician as Mr. Lloyd George should have allowed himself to be misled into making the dual appoint- ment. As to that, the reason probably is that he is a politician and that he acted from motives of policy alone. However, he is hardly likely to make the same mistake again unless, horrible thought, Sir Eric Geddes should consider that the tas*k of " co- ordinating " transport has been given a sufficient start and believes now that he has a mission to do the same for the Army and the Air Force ! One consequence of the impending changes is that the question of a Ministry of Defence is once more being discussed. General Brancker recently pointed out, in a letter to The Times, the desirability of grouping the whole of our defence organisation under one head. As to that, we have a perfectly open mind, as our readers who remember what we have written on this subject on previous occasions will know. General Brancker says, with considerable force, that this would involve the creation of a real Imperial General Staff, on which N£vy, Army and Air would be represented, and which would deal with the greater questions of strategy without any bias towards any particular Service or method of warfare, Such a body would have been of incalculable value on the outbreak of war in 1914, when no expert control or co-ordination between Navy and Army was in operation—a defici- ency which led to endless overlapping, competition, confusion and waste. He thinks the time has come for such a change to be fully and seriously considered. There is a growing desire, he says, in the Admiralty to wreck the Air Ministry and revert to the old non-progressive system of having separate naval and military air services. He says, and we agree absolutely, that such a retro- grade step would spell ruin to this country in the future and must be resisted at all costs. It will be—but the. •" • ' : ..-.'• ' ? • ~ '" . • JANUARY 27, 1921 trouble is the difficulty of discovering in-time what service and political " wangling " is going on. We know that there is a very strong reactionary party at the Admiralty, as there is also at the War Office, which desires to go back to the bad old system of pre-1918. Hitherto, they have been headed off, but who knows what may happen if we should get a mere political and complacent figure-head as Air Minister ? There is danger in the situation, which will have to be very carefully watched. .. - , ' •••"•*» "... ' Two very interesting papers have beenThe <rfalUe rea<* recentlY». bearing on the relative Air Transportvalues °f tne different methods of trans- port and with particular reference to the conveyance of passengers and goods by air. One was given by Lord Montagu of Beaulieu before the Royal Aeronautical Society on " A Comparison of the Costs of Transport by Land, Sea and Air," a title which quite adequately explains itself. As we are printing a very full digest of the lecture, there is no need to make quotation from it here. The other paper to which we have referred was read by Capt. Acland, to the members of the Central Asian Society, in which he particularly emphasised the great value of the speed possessed by aircraft and its probable bearing on the affairs of commerce and the world generally. Judged in the light of pure cost figures, aerial trans- port hardly compares favourably with other forms of conveyance and may have to remain for a considerable time in that condition. It may be that the progress of invention and development will lead to substantial cost reductions. Indeed, it is not beyond the possi- bilities that they can be reduced to a figure actually below that of travel by rail or steamship, but in the light of present knowledge that is best left to our hopes. We have, therefore, to look for countervailing advan- tages which will balance the account and, fortunately, these are not at all difficult to discover. As a matter of fact, we need go no farther than speed to see where the aeroplane and the airship can now, and always will be, able to hold their own in competition. If any service is to be commercially successful, relying upon speed and certainty alone, it predicates that there must always be a sufficient number of passengers willing to pay higher rates for the sake of that speed. Also, there must be a sufficient goods traffic in addition, and the question which has to be settled is whether or not these conditi6ns exist, or may be anticipated to exist. The answer is given in the figures relating to the cross-Channel services operating from this country and those available in connection with services on the Continent and in America. All these show a steady and progressive increase, demonstrating, we think, that the willing- ness to pay for speed does exist, while the public is undergoing the necessary education to convince it that not only is aerial travel the fastest form of trans- port the mind of man can conceive, but that it is equally as safe and as certain as any other. Time is money, and the whole development of communica- tions shows that the truth of this doubtless trite adage is realised to the full, especially by the com- merical communities. Else we should not have seen the telegraph, the telephone, wireless and all the rest of the facilities for travel and intercommunication expand as they have, irrespective of cost. Every time we send a telegram we are paying for speed, since it is cheaper to send a letter. It costs less to walk round the corner to speak to a person direct than to telephone ••*.-.:;.:-•
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