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Aviation History
1951
1951 - 2234.PDF
November 1951 MANPOWER v AIR POWER 589 The Essence of a Serious Situation: An Analysis by the Air League's Chairman AN arresting picture of our present air rearmament /% situation was given by Air Chief Marshal Sir Guy •*- Garrod, chairman of the Air League of the British Empire, in a speech at the luncheon given by the League at Londonderry House on November 1st. Sir Guy first touched on the present inadequacy of provision for air transport, and re-emphasised the observation made by Lord Bruce of Melbourne on the opening day of the S.B.A.C. Farn- borough display. He went on to say that an immense industrial effort was required in order to provide the very large numbers of aircraft of all categories which would be required before this country and the Commonwealth could be considered to possess the necessary air power—not just power to meet the menace of another war, but to deal with situations which were constantly developing n the uneasy state of semi-war which had so long existed in the world. The essentials for any manufacturing undertaking of such a nature were raw materials, machine tools and manpower. Whilst a good deal had been done during the past eighteen months to remedy the shortage of raw materials and machine tools, a man- power situation had been developing about which little or nothing had been attempted. The situation was now critical. The whole of our air rearmament programme and, perhaps, of our military and naval rearmament programmes, was in peril because of the lack of manpower, and particularly of skilled manpower. The rate of recruitment into the aircraft industry was worse now than it was at the beginning of the year. The late Government's intention was that the less essential industries should lose men for the rearmament industries, but this had not happened, as the official figures showed—quite the reverse in some cases. Even if some of the industries engaged on non-essential products were manufacturing for export, the question arose whether there might not be other exports equally valuable as far as their earnings were concerned, but which would be more important because, in case of need, their products would be valuable in the rearmament effort. Strategic Exports In this connection, Sir Guy went on to say that this country at present had a lead of at least five years over the rest of the world in turbojet and turboprop transport aircraft. We ought, therefore, to be producing these aircraft in considerable numbers. We needed them as part of our military equipment and, at the same time, they would be a most valuable export, not least in securing a permanent position in the world market for many years to come. But we were in danger now of repeating the disastrous decision made during the last war of leaving the building of transport aircraft to the Americans. The foreign airline operators fully appreciated the potentialities of the new gas-turbine aircraft, but could not be expected to buy them unless they could have delivery. But by expanding our output of transport aircraft we could, at one and the same time, create an actual and potential export trade, and also make an indispensable addition to our air-power resources. Referring to the manpower situation, Sir Guy said that it should be borne in mind that by no means the full amount of orders required by the current defence programme had yet been placed; in fact it seemed likely that, unless something was done, some of those orders might never be placed. We were still to a large extent in the preliminary stages represented by such things as factory construction and tooling. The Economic Survey for 1951 stated that by April, 1953 the aircraft industry and the Ordnance factories would together require an additional labour force of 175,000, of which it was calculated that the aircraft industry alone would need 160,000. Actual recruitment since the programme began was only about 10,000 up to the end of July this year, leaving another 150,000 to be found by April, 1953. This worked out at an average intake of 7,500 a month and yet, during the four months from April to July, this year, the average rate of intake per month was only 850. This showed how far our air-defence programme was falling short of its planned realization. In the basic industries which were the very foundation of rearmament, such as iron and steel smelting, rolling and forging, siieet and tinplates, electric cables, non-ferrous metals, and many ethers, the manpower situation was even worse than in the industries directly associated with the construction and equipment °j aircraft, because the labour force was actually declining. Yet whilst this crisis had been developing in the industries which produce the aircraft, guns and tanks, official statistics showed that increasing manpower was being employed in such industries as cocoa, chocolate and sugar confectionery, tailoring and dress- making, toilet preparations, toys, games and sports requisites, and so forth. Most of the problems stemmed from the fact that there was no pool of unutilized manpower from which to draw. But the fact had to be faced that, in addition to the requirements of the aircraft industry and Ordnance factories, more than 300,000 men would, before long, be required—many of them were already urgently needed—to cope with the total of defence contracts as rearmament proceeded. Even then, we should have something like 250,000 fewer people employed in rearmament than were so employed in 1939, just before the last war began. With the total of unfilled vacancies in all types of employment standing at nearly half a million (the highest for three years), it seemed pretty obvious that there would have to be a good deal of what the official report on manpower euphemistically termed "rearrangement of labour" if the defence industries were to get the manpower they required. But we had never been told that any steps were being taken to deal with the matter. Control or Incentive ; ^ The effect of this shortage of skilled men was cumulative; for example, the output of factories and their precious machine tools could be increased by working double shifts, but double shifts could not be worked because there were not enough skilled men. The industries doing urgent defence work suffered severely from the fact that they had to lose many skilled men who were taken away for National Service just when they had completed their apprenticeship. Again, some firms engaged on non-essential work were retaining skilled labour by introducing short time, whilst others engaged in rearmament work had vacancies they were unable to fill. Then there was the fact that firms were free to bid against each other for skilled labour without regard to the impor- tance of the work they might be doing. Sir Godfrey Ince, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Labour, told the Select Committee on Estimates that this question, which was most important in relation to defence, had never been satisfactorily dealt with except by the Control of Engagement Order, which was in fact revoked in March, 1950. Could we, asked Sir Guy, afford the luxury of a five-day week in the present state of the world and in view of our deficiencies in defence? What incentives could be offered to workpeople to increase their output ? They would work harder if they were put in the picture and told the full story. But to get maximum results there had to be incentives—of many possible kinds, ranging from various forms of payment by results to such things as working- week increases accompanied by exemption of increased earnings from income tax. State of Emergency To relate the critical manpower situation mainly to air defence the then-Secretary of State for Air had quite recently said that, in the event of war, Russia and her satellites could launch from Eastern Europe tactical air forces of more than 8,000 aircraft in addition to a substantial bomber force—a concentration three times as large as the air force available to Hitler in 1940. Sir Basil Embry, Commander-in-Chief of Fighter Command, had recently said that, whereas in 1940 six and a half per cent of attacking bombers were shot down, in the next war 100 per cent would have to be shot down—over the sea. The recent air exercises pointed a lesson which we dared not ignore: that our aircraft at present in service were inadequate in numbers and mainly obsolescent in type. But added to this was the necessity for providing the true air defence which was by a vigorous bomber offensive to crush the enemy's air power at its source. Added to all this again was the provision of aircraft in sufficient numbers to cope with the equal and possibly deadlier menace to our security, the submarine. One then began to realize the tremendous industrial effort which would be needed to make adequate provision for our safety. Sir Guy concluded with the observation that although it was a commonplace that machines were of no use without men to fly them, it was equally true that there were no machines unless first there were men to build them. Our air rearmament would remain to a large extent on paper, or at best its realization would be prolonged beyond the limits of safety unless immediate action was taken to deal with the present causes of delay.
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