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Aviation History
1921
1921 - 0518.PDF
we know the Air Ministry to possess^ Unquestionably there is more behind it than the public has been given to understand. For example, a Committee has been sitting under the presidency of the Air Minister to " enquire into the possibility of using the ships for commercial purposes, and its findings have been sub- mitted to the Imperial Conference. It is understood that these findings are adverse to.the airships. Why ? And, seeing that it was airships and nothing else with which the Committee were dealing, why was no single airship man asked to give views or informa- tion ? We do not like the methods of this Committee, and trust that more will be heard of the hole-and- corner methods which it has adopted. As a matter of fact, we believe that the Parliamentary Air Com- mittee is fully alive to the things that have been going on below the surface, and that some rather awkward questions are likely to be put within the next few days. If the truth can be extracted from the Government, we are very much of opinion that it will be found that the condemnation of the airships has at its root the grandiose schemes of the Secretary for the Colonies for a greatly expanded military air service in the Middle East. There is not money enough to be found for developing both the Churchill scheme and the airships, and the latter are to be killed in the interests of the other. • t- « ••'.-•• • -r •' f; _ _ According to the official reports, issued ~.y Aviation by the Canadian Dominion Government, Canada considerable progress is being made in the development of civil aviation in the Dominion. In all manner of ways, aircraft are being shown to possess qualities of great value, not alone in quickening up communications between places in remote parts of the country, inaccessible by ordinary methods of transport, but in ways hitherto only guessed at. For example, seaplanes are being used extensively in the preventive service to stop the smuggling of opium from the Orient. At first sight this would seem rather far fetched, but the matter is in reality quite simple. It had been found that the smuggling was chiefly carried out by men travelling in the ships coming from the Far East who, when approaching Vancouver, dropped the contraband, made up in watertight packages, overboard to be picked up by small craft in waiting. Every inward bound liner is now escorted by a seaplane, which meets her when about two hours out. The aircraft flies at about 1,000 feet, and a sharp look-out is kept for any sign of the suspected smuggling. This has been found to be completely effective, and opium smuggling is for the time being a very unprofitable line of business. Aircraft are also being extensively used in forest survey work, and a great deal of very useful photo- graphic work is being done for the Forestry Depart- ment. The photographing of mosquito breeding grounds is another direction in which very useful work seems to have been carried out. And the move- ment is still very much in its infancy. Undoubtedly the Canadian authorities appear to have a proper realisation of the potential value of aircraft, and are sparing no pains to discover new uses and new lines of development. They seem to view the new trans port with a progressive eye and, what is better, with considerable faith in the future of aviation, both as an aid to Government services and for more com- mercial purposes. \ AUGUST 4, 192! to the purposes of transport and survey in a Dominion like Canada, where distances are great and communica- tions, generally speaking, poor, than it does in a; comparatively small country like our own with a highly developed and complex communications system. Nevertheless, we commend the example of the Canadian Government to our own authorities. • *t • Nothing much has been heard for some t. ?» r time of the movement which we know the R.A.F. r _. j • r ,, , in was on foot—and is now, for thatDanger? matter—for wiping out the Royal Air Force and reverting to the bad old scheme of two Services under the Admiralty and the War Office respectively. We had begun to treasure the hope that the movement was moribund, but from what we have heard recently we are afraid it is very much alive. So much so, indeed, that we have heard it prophesied that within twelve months the Air Ministry, and with-it the R.A.F., will have ceased to exist. It is difficult to know just how seriously to treat such prophecies. Much depends upon who makes them and under what circumstances. In this case, we are satisfied that the prophet in question had means of knowing and access to information which would at least enable him to know what is going on. In this connection we are bound io say that we do not trust Mr. Churchill. Greatly as we admire his many qualities and much as we admit he has done for aviation in the past, he certainly has- a genius for intrigue, and we believe that he is even now engaged in working matters for his own ends. Not, let us hasten to say, for any personal reasons. But the Colonial Secretary has the military brain, and-is apt to regard all developments from the point of view of the soldier. We have said in a previous article that it is stated, and we believe with truth, that he is at the back of the obstinate stand taken by the Cabinet in the matter of the airships, his reasons being mainly that any money voted for the development he wants applied to schemes of military expansion, with particular reference to the Middle East. It may be objected that Mr. Churchill is no longer Air Minister. We agree that, de facto, he is not, but we are not at all inclined to take the view that he does not dictate air policy to his successor. On the contrary, we should require considerable convincing that, while the voice may be that of Capt. Guest, the hand is not that of the Colonial Secretary. The question that will arise now is : What has all this to do with the reversion to two Air Services and the wiping out of the Air Ministry ? That is not at all difficult to answer. We know that there is a section of opinion in both Navy and Army to the effect that it was a mistake ever to have constituted the Air Service as a separate force. It is a powerful mass of opinion too. We do not agree that it is sound, but that is not the point. It exists, and that is enough for the purposes of the argument. Now, so long as the Air Ministry controls its own Estimates, schemes of military aerial expansion in the East must be subjected to close examination, automatically, by Parliament. If, however, the estimates for aerial services are merely a part of the Navy and Army Estimates, there will not be the same scrutiny. Moreover, once we have established the principle of two branch air services, there is room for a third to be administered by the Colonial Office, which could take. air services oi a\\ t\\e CTCWTA. Colonies518
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