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Aviation History
1926
1926 - 0034.PDF
JANUARY 21, 1926 SECURITY IN THE AIR IN connection with our Editorial Comment this week we publish below a leading article from our esteemed con- temporary The Daily Telegraph, of January 19, 1926, in which the subject of security in the air and the reported slowing up of air development are dealt with in the fair and unbiased manner so characteristic of that newspaper. Thus The Daily Telegraph :— " The Estimates for the financial year 1926-1927 are now under consideration, and the outcome is of exceptional concern to the public because of the need, and yet the admitted difficulty, of balancing a reduction of expenditure with the maintenance of national security. This difficulty is due largely to the fact that the economies now sought are but the latest of a series, after each of which the responsible Ministers and their advisers have declared that the Forces were reduced to the minimum compatible with security. To scrape the bones of a skeleton cannot be expected to produce much result. In such a case a Government is confronted with three possible courses ; to abandon hope of any large savings ; to investigate the completeness of the past ' cuts ' and the possibility that their thoroughness may have been exaggerated ; to reconstruct the skeleton on a different scale or model. The appointment of the Colwyn Committee on Expenditure was an attempt to follow the second alternative. If report be true, the savings proposed, while helpful, do not amount to a large sum. Report also suggests that the reduction on the forthcoming Navy and Army Estimates will only bear a small proportion to the total. On the other hand, the Air Minister, in a speech on December 16, forecast very considerable savings in his Department by postponing heavy expenditure that had been planned. ' In the normal course of things the Air Estimates would rise next year by some 30 per cent, as an automatic result of the policj- of expansion that has been approved by successive Governments and sanctioned by the House of Commons. This heavy rise, which would have brought the Air Estimates to a sum well over £20,000,000, as compared with the £16,000,000 of this year, would have been most unfortunate at a time when the whole world is thinking of peace, and when every British taxpayer is clamouring for a reduction of Government expenditure.' On the face of it, such a large saving by mere postponement appears the rational course, and, moreover, an ideal way to counterbalance the difficulty of administrative economies in the other Services. Yet is it really anything more than the easy and time- honoured method of avoiding problems rather than facing them ? " The impression current is that we are to mark time for two, if not three, years in the development of the air pro- gramme that, in 1923, was adopted as the minimum necessary for the defence of the country against air attack. The poten- tialities of aircraft as a weapon against the civil population and the defenceless state of this country were alike realised in that year, and a public outcry arose. On June 26 the Prime Minister, Mr. Baldwin, made a statement in the House of ^Commons, setting forth the principle on which British air policy was to be based—' A Home Defence of sufficient strength adequately to protect us against air attack by the strongest Air Force within striking distance of this country.' Subsequently, Sir Samuel Hoare announced that it had been decided to create with as little delay as possible a Home Defence force of fifty-two squadrons, so organised as to make further expansion possible if found necessary. These fifty-two squadrons were thus the accepted minimum, for defence not offence, and it was generally understood that the expansion was to be completed in about five years. In 1924 the Labour Government declared its adhesion to this policy, and in March, 1925, with a return of the Conservative Government, the principle was reiterated. Successive Governments of opposing politics have thus endorsed and confirmed both the policy and the principle on which it was based. Are there adequate reasons for throwing it overboard ? Those sug- gested are, apparently, Locarno and the need for economy. The cry for economy was as strong in 1923 as in 1926, yet the Government who were making much heavier cuts than to-day in other services initiated this additional item as essential. After the war, we cut down our magnificent Air Force to a fragment, but no Continental Power followed our example, nor has there been any suggestion of such action since the signing of the Treaty of Locarno. The French have some 140 squadrons, practically all at home, the Italians are well on the way to a force of 100 squadrons. Our Home Defence expansion has only reached a total of twenty Regular and five Special Reserve or auxiliary squadrons. " To the public, the taxpayers, who realise the probability that they will be the first target at the outset of another war, there is little consolation in knowing that we have a superbly trained airpersonnel on the ground, but few machines in the air. The consequences of the proposed ' cut ' were indicated in the report of the annual meeting of the Rolls- Royce Co. ' The result of any important curtailment of the Air Ministry programme for new aeroplanes and engines must necessarily involve the discharge of a considerable number of workmen who were experienced experts and could not be replaced. This must place the British Empire in a position of danger. Obviously engine-designers could not spend their time and money in bringing out new aero-engines unless they were in receipt of sufficient orders to justify such expenditure.' The Air Force relies on private enterprise for its machines, and as a result the aircraft industry forms as essential a pivot of the scheme of national defence as any combatant part. Further, no other arm is developing so rapidly, nor finds its instruments obsolete so soon, and thus, as Maj. Turner pointed out in these columns yesterday, the progress of design is as vital as the supply of material. If orders are suspended for two or three years, not only must factories be closed down, but experiment also will be cramped, for no firm can afford it, nor will they have any prospect to offer to the engineering brains of the country. Such a policy is even immediately extravagant, for the smaller the orders the higher must be the cost per unit, engine, or machine- BRISTOLS IN GERMANY : This photograph shows a school machine, fitted with Bristol " Lucifer " engine built by the ARADO Handels Gesellschaft m.b.H., of Warnemunde. The wing bracing is somewhat unusual. 34
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