FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1922
1922 - 0308.PDF
in the air, and for the proper equipment and main tenance of all arms of the three fighting services in a state of readiness and efficiency. He is to arrange for the provision and regulation of an adequate supply of personnel to all three fighting services with a view to co-ordination, and to reduction of un necessary services, and to maintain a balance as between one service and another in the expenditure required to carry out the general scheme of defence. He will be responsible to His Majesty's Government that the actual expenditure is the minimum that can attain its object. The Bill is arranged in eleven clauses, to some of which we may now refer in detail. Clause i, para. (6) provides that the Defence Council shall form the nucleus for an Imperial General Staff; it shall absorb the duties now performed by the Committee of Imperial Defence, and shall have power to co-opt representatives from other Government Departments. Para. (8) of Clause I provides that, in order to place the members who serve at the Admiralty, War Office and Air Ministry on a footing of equality, the members of the various boards are to be generally known as First Member of Naval Board, First Member of Army Board, First Member of Air Board, Second Member of Naval Board, etc. According to Clause 2 the Minister shall, it is suggested, make such provisions as may be necessary to constitute a department to consider and co ordinate the planning of future operations of all three fighting services, but after operational pro grammes have been approved by the Defence Council, they are to be carried out by the Admiralty, War Office and Air Ministry themselves, and, except in special circumstances, the Minister shall only issue executive orders to active units and commanders-in- chief through the operations departments of the three services. Clause 3 provides that the construction, inspection and testing of new material shall be carried out by a department of the Ministry of Defence, so as to provide a nucleus capable of expansion in time of war into a Ministry of Munitions. Advisory bodies for research, scientific work, examination of inventions, etc., shall be formed under the Defence Council, and the Minister shall be responsible that each of the fighting services is equipped with the most up-to-date weapons that modern science dictates. Of particular general interest is, naturally, Clause 6, which deals with Civil Aviation. This Clause reads :— "The Minister of Defence shall be responsible that civil aviation is developed and maintained, having due regard to the defensive requirements within the Empire, comparable with the development and maintenance of civil aviation by other leading powers and that subsidies as necessary are provided similar to those arrangements that have previously existed with armament firms, mercantile marine and cable companies. Air enterprise within the Empire shall be encouraged to allow a nucleus being ready for immediate expansion should the necessity of doing so arise." If the Bill becomes law, the Act is to come into operation on October i, 1922. We have already, many months ago, expressed the view that, if the right man can be found for the post of Minister of Defence, the creation of such a centralised control of the three fighting services should result in co-ordinated action of the Nation's resources in all events, to the great gain of the Empire's defensive and offensive barriers. Moreover, and JUNE I, 1922 also highly important, considerable economies should be effected. With three separate services working independently it is inevitable that there should be waste and overlapping, and a Minister of Defence would have to see to it that the claims of each service were carefully examined, and that no grant was made for any particular purpose unless the particular service could convince the Defence Council that it could fulfil that purpose more efficiently and economically than any of the other two services. Properly handled, the task of the Minister should not be outside practical politics, but the man chosen must be a strong man, a man of wide vision, a man who is able to sift and weigh evidence, and finally he must not be a man drawn from any of the fighting services, unless one can be found who has had deep experience of all three, otherwise there is the danger that he will not be impartial. As regards the Clause dealing with Civil Aviation, we are glad to see such emphasis being given to the closest co-operation between Civil Aviation and the defence of the realm. Making the Minister of Defence responsible for giving Civil Aviation its proper support, in proportion to its value to the defences of the country, is a safeguard against turning Civil Aviation over to the Board of Trade, as was feared at one time. What chance the Bill has of going through need not, for the moment, be discussed. That it is sound upon general principles appears to us to be undoubted. In any case, the mere drawing up and presentation of the Bill should help to clear the decks for future official action. • • • It is announced that, as in previous Air Force1 years> the RAR Pa€eant will be held Pageant a* Hendon, on June 24. Readers of FLIGHT will not need to be reminded that the Pageant is an integral and important part of the training of the Air Force, and fulfils the same function as does the Royal Tournament in the case of the Army and Navy. The experience of the two Pageants already held at Hendon has proved that the general public takes a great interest in service aviation, and for this year we understand that a programme has been arranged which will enable the public to appreciate even to a greater degree than last year the developments that are constantly taking place. Full details of the pro gramme are not j^et available, but it is understood that one of the more spectacular items is to be the destruction of a " desert stronghold " by bombing aircraft. In addition to this "star turn " there will no doubt, as in previous years, be plenty of events to keep visitors interested throughout the .day, and nobody need fear having a dull time at Hendon on June 24. Stunting will be in evidence and formation flights of various sorts. It is not too much to say that never, at any time in any country, has an aviation meeting been so well organised, the items run off so well to time, and the interest so well sustained throughout the day, as at the two previous Pageants. WTe, therefore, confidently predict that, large as were the crowds in previous years, they will be even larger this year. Full particulars of the Pageant and directions for getting to and from Hendon will be published in due course. And, by way of a last point, the whole profits go to the R.A.F. Memorial Fund. 308
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
